Yanbin Li

Ocean University of China | OUC · Key Laboratory of Marine Chemical and Marine Chemical Engineering, Ministry of Education

Studies on the environmental fate and risk of mercury (Hg) have been mostly focused on total mercury and a very toxic species methylmercury (MeHg). However, another organic Hg species, ethylmercury (EtHg), has long been neglected, partly due to the analytical limitations. The generally used aqueous ethylation for analyzing MeHg converts both Hg2+ a...

Riverine mercury (Hg) is the largest global source of Hg in coastal oceans. The Yellow River delivers the majority of Hg to the semi-enclosed Bohai Sea, where Hg contamination adversely affects the surrounding heavily populated provinces in northern China. Mercury distribution patterns in the river-estuary interacting area provides essential inform...

Mercury (Hg) as a toxic pollutant in marine systems have been paid more attention. The Jiaozhou Bay (JZB) is located at the western coast of the Yellow Sea surrounded by Qingdao city, a developed city in China. >10 rivers and several sewage treatment plants carry lots of Hg input it, increasing the environmental risks JZB facing. However, there is...

Soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model was used to calculate the runoff, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions in the Dagu River Basin from 2002 to 2012 and provided preliminary suggestions on environmental protection measures. Calibration on hydrological watershed parameters was obtained from data obtained from multiple representative stations. C...

Mercury sulfide nanoparticles (HgSNP), as natural metal-containing nanoparticles, are the dominant Hg species in anoxic zones. Although the microbial Hg methylation of HgSNP has been previously reported, the importance of this process in Hg methylation has yet to be clarified due to the lack of knowledge on the internalization and transformation of...

Considering the interrelatedness of river and bay ecosystems, river and bay water quality management is shifting to integrated management across coastlines. Here, an integrated management indicator for the coordinated and efficient nitrogen abatement of the Bohai Sea and its basin was proposed. The terrigenous total nitrogen (TN) allocated load was...

The Yellow Sea (YS) of China is facing severe mercury (Hg) pollution problems while the concentration of Hg in the sediment is relatively low compared to its high discharge intensity, whose mechanisms are still unclear. Here, we performed batch experiments to investigate the Hg adsorption capacity of the YS sediments. Freundlich isothermal adsorpti...

The Eastern China Marginal Seas (ECMS) have been facing a variety of environmental problems, including mercury (Hg) pollution. Although several previous studies have been focused on mass balance of Hg in the ECMS, the contribution of Hg transport at the sediment-water interface remains unclear. This study was aimed to access and quantify the import...

The transformation of mercury (Hg) in the environment plays a vital role in the cycling of Hg and its risk to the ecosystem and human health. Of particular importance are Hg oxidation/reduction and methylation/demethylation processes driven or mediated by the dynamics of light, microorganisms, and organic carbon, among others. Advances in understan...

Photochemical degradation acts as the principal sink for methylmercury (MeHg) in surface water, which is regulated by light and solution matrix (especially the presence of dissolved organic matter, DOM). The spectral composition of light irradiation and the light absorption properties of reaction media (often exerted by DOM) are important in MeHg p...

Globally, many bays have been subjected to water quality (WQ) deterioration, due to excessive discharge of terrigenous total nitrogen (TN). In China, several projects have been implemented to control TN loads; however, due to the lack of linkage between a bay’s polluted segments and its basin’s jurisdictions, the WQ improvement efficiency usually i...

Methylmercury (MeHg), a potent neurotoxin, can be formed, migrated and transformed in environmental compartments, accompanying with unique mass-dependent and mass-independent fractionation of mercury (Hg). These Hg isotope fractionation signals have great potential to probe the transformation and transport of MeHg in aquatic environments. However,...

Mercury (Hg) and its compounds are a kind of worldwide concerned persistent toxic pollutants. As the major primary producer in the ocean, microalgae are expected to play an important role in the cycling and accumulation of Hg in marine ecosystems by either uptake Hg species from seawater or involving in the transformations of Hg species. However, t...

Biomonitoring is an effective way to assess the effects of pollutants on marine ecosystems. As an important fishing region in China, the Chinese Bohai Sea has been contaminated with heavy metals, posing great risks to seafood safety and human health. Herein, the spatiotemporal variations in the concentrations of seven heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu,...

Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant of health concern due to formation and bioaccumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) during its biogeochemical cycle. Coastal areas are important regions in the biogeochemical cycling of Hg (Liu et al., 2017), where often-occurring natural and anthropogenic perturbations affect Hg transport and transformation and the as...

The mercury (Hg) loadings to the coastal regions of China have significantly increased in the last decades, and it is thus critical to unravel the input pathway and historical influx of these Hg. Here, concentrations and isotope compositions of Hg in three sediment cores collected from different mud areas of eastern China seas were comprehensively...

Mercurous Hg (Hg(I)) is, from the perspective of chemistry, an inevitable intermediate in Hg(II)/Hg(0) redox, presumably playing a critical role in the environmental transformation of common toxic Hg species, such as Hg(II), Hg(0), and methylmercury. The occurrence of Hg(I) in the environment, however, remains scarcely known, due to its instability...

Harmful algae bloom (HAB) is a major global ecological hazard and is a serious problem in the Bohai Sea. There have been few successful controls of HABs associated with HAB accurate predictions due to a lack of link between ecological risks and control measures. A methodology is proposed that embeds the compound eutrophication index (CEI) into an e...

Current ecological risk assessment and controlling element identification methods of harmful algal blooms (HABs) are not connected. Here, we identified the controlling elements by correlation and principal component analyses, and the analytic hierarchy process. A compound eutrophication index (CEI) integrating risk assessment with controlling eleme...

Mercury (Hg) is among contaminants of public concern due to its prevalent existence, high toxicity, and bioaccumulation through food chains. Elevated Hg has been detected in seafood from the East China Sea (ECS), which is one of the largest marginal seas and an important fishing region in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. However, there is still a la...

Elemental mercury (Hg⁰) is the major form of mercury (Hg) emitted into the environment via anthropogenic activities, resulting in the distribution of Hg worldwide via atmospheric transport. Hg⁰ in oceans plays an important role in global Hg cycling, mainly by affecting the oceanic-atmospheric exchange of Hg. Due to the large amounts of Hg that are...

Marine monitoring in Bohai Sea is delivered within three networks by lacking appropriate sampling and assessment methodologies. Water-quality response grid (WRG)-based sampling design using optimization and multi-factors assessment can reliably detect a variety of environmental impacts. Which includes 5 steps: selects environmental reference factor...

With the rapid development of economy in surrounding land, the Pacific Ocean is facing a number of serious environmental challenges, including mercury (Hg) pollution. Over the past several decades, a number of studies have been conducted on investigating the cycling of Hg in this ecosystem. This review summarizes recent studies on the distribution...

To achieve good water quality and support sustainable economic development, a total pollution load control index system for precision total nitrogen (TN) emission reduction in the coastal city of Qingdao was established. The index system for TN emission reduction included indices for two groups: a fixed index of marine emission reduction (rate) for...

This study aims to provide a quantitative basis for the precision emission reduction of land-based total nitrogen (TN) pollutants in Qingdao, China. The total maximum allocated load (TMAL) of TN pollutants within jurisdictions in Qingdao was calculated by using a 3D hydrodynamic-water quality model and a linear programming model. The TMAL includes...

Human activities have increased land-based pollutant loads, which have caused a significant variation in unit source concentration response matrices (USCRMs) of the coastal ocean. A variable response matrix approach (VRMA) for simulation-optimization load allocation is proposed and applied to solve the uncertainty caused by variations in USCRMs in...

Simulation-optimization approaches are widely used in land-based pollutant load allocation and management. However, existing simulation-optimization approaches do not optimize the entire pathway of pollution (i.e., generation, transportation, and emission). Thus, the selected allocated load scheme and its reduction management are incomplete and non...

Mercury (Hg) is among the most concerned contaminants in the world. It has three major chemical forms in the environment, including Hg⁰, Hg2 +, and methylmercury (MeHg). Due to their differences in toxicity, mobility, and bioavailability, speciation analysis is critical for understanding Hg cycling and fate in the environment. SnCl2 reduction-atomi...

Photodegradation is the main depletion pathway for methylmercury (MeHg) in surface water. The formation of MeHg-dissolved organic matter (DOM) complexes has been found to be a key step in MeHg photodegradation. However, the major functional groups involved in the DOM-mediated process have yet to be clearly resolved. In this work, we systematically...

Herein, we report on a simple, clean, and efficient method for generating hydroxyl radicals using a nitrocellulose membrane (NCM) under light of wavelengths greater than 280 nm. Hydroxyl radicals formed on the NCM surface, diffusing into the bulk solution under irradiation. Radical generation was shown to be dependent on the nature of the NCM and l...

Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant of public concern because of its high toxicity and capability for worldwide distribution via long-range atmospheric transportation. Wet atmospheric deposition is an important source of Hg in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Concentrations of various Hg species in precipitation were monitored from March 2...

Recent reports of elevated levels of methylmercury (MeHg) in rice revealed the possible occurrence of MeHg in infant rice cereals, leading to potential MeHg exposure through cereal consumption. Total mercury (THg) and MeHg levels in 119 infant cereal samples commonly marketed in the United States and China and estimated daily intake of MeHg through...

Elemental mercury (Hg⁰) has different behavior in the environment compared to other pollutants due to its unique properties. It can remain in the atmosphere for long periods of time and so can travel long distances. Through air-surface (e.g., vegetation or ocean) exchange (dry deposition), Hg⁰ can enter terrestrial and aquatic systems where it can...

Species-specific stable isotope dilution in combination with gold trap - or gas chromatography (GC) - inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is reported for the determination of inorganic mercury and methylmercury in diatoms (Chaetoceros curvisetus). The optimum conditions for the separation parameters were established. The isotope d...

With the interactive and accumulative effects of multiple pressures, the dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentration (CDIN) is increasing considerably and is regarded as the dominant chemical pollutant in Jiaozhou Bay (JZB). To efficiently prevent water quality (WQ) deterioration, the relationships among the CDIN in JZB with anthropogenic pressure i...

A variety of free radicals (FR)/reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been proposed to dominate methylmercury (MeHg) photodegradation, primarily based on the results of FR/ROS scavenger addition experiments. However, in addition to eliminating FR/ROS, the added scavengers may also affect the experimental results by altering some water chemical propert...

The Bohai Sea (BS) and Yellow Sea (YS), which are adjacent to the most urbanized and industrialized areas in China, are facing a variety of environmental problems. Two cruises were conducted to investigate the pollution status of toxic metals in BS and YS sediments. They generally presented a decreasing trend from near shore to offshore. In additio...

Photodegradation is the main depletion pathway of methylmercury (MeHg) in surface water. However, the underlying mechanism of MeHg photodegradation is still not well understood. In this study, the critical role of natural organic matter (NOM) from Suwannee River natural organic matter of the International Humic Substance Society, especially its mol...

AgCl and Ag2S prevalently exist in the environment as minerals and/or the chlorination and sulfidation products of ionic silver and elemental silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). In this work, we investigated the chemical transformation of AgCl and Ag2S under simulated sunlight (in water) and incineration (in sludge and simulated municipal solid waste, SM...

Cinnabar dissolution is an important factor controlling mercury (Hg) cycling. Recent studies have suggested the co-occurrence of re-adsorption of the released Hg during the course of cinnabar dissolution. However, there is a lack of feasible techniques that can quantitatively assess the amount of Hg re-adsorbed on cinnabar when investigating cinnab...

The equal percent removal (EPR) method, in which pollutant reduction ratio was set as the same in all administrative regions, failed to satisfy the requirement for water quality improvement in the Bohai Sea. Such requirement was imposed by the developed Coastal Pollution Total Load Control Management. The total maximum allocated load (TMAL) of nitr...

The Florida Everglades is an environmentally sensitive wetland ecosystem with a number of threatened and endangered fauna species susceptible to the deterioration of water quality. Several potential toxic metal sources exist in the Everglades, including farming, atmospheric deposition, and human activities in urban areas, causing concerns of potent...

Elemental mercury, Hg(0), is ubiquitous in water and involved in key Hg biogeochemical processes. It is extensively studied as a purgeable dissolved species, termed dissolved gaseous mercury (DGM). Little information is available regarding non-purgeable particulate Hg(0) in water, Hg(0) bound to suspended particulate matter (SPM), which is presumab...

In order to evaluate heavy metal contamination in surface waters in the Jiaozhou Bay (JZB), a typical semi-enclosed bay in the north of China, and to identify the response of heavy metal distribution to terrigenous sources and tides, the land-based discharge flux of dissolved Cu, Pb, Zn and Cd and their particulates, as well as their concentrations...

The distribution patterns of nonylphenol (NP) were surveyed in 26 surface sediments and one sediment core collected from Yangtze Estuary and its adjacent area from May to June of 2010. In the surface sediments, NP concentrations first increased and then decreased from inshore to offshore, ranging from 137.5 ng/g dry weight (d.w.) to 559.0 ng/g d.w....

Methyl iodide or iodomethane (CH3I) has recently been registered as a fumigant in many countries, although its environmental impacts are not well understood. Here we report the results of a study on the methylation of mercury by CH3I in natural water by incubation experiments using both Hg ((199)HgCl2 and )- and hydrogen (CD3I)-stable isotope addit...

Photodegradation is the major pathway of methylmercury (MeHg) degradation in many surface waters. However, the mechanism of MeHg photodegradation is still not completely understood. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is expected to play a critical role in MeHg photodegradation. By using several techniques, including N2/O2 purging and the addition of st...

The role of macrophytes in mercury (Hg) cycling in the Florida Everglades ecosystem has not been fully understood. In this study, stable isotope ((199)Hg(2+)) addition technique was used to trace the methylation, uptake and translocation of Hg by sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense) and quantitatively evaluate the contribution of atmospheric and soil Hg t...

Mercury (Hg) and its compounds are a class of highly toxic and pervasive pollutants. During the biogeochemical cycling of Hg, methylmercury (MeHg), a potent neurotoxin, can be produced and subsequently bioaccumulated along the food chain in aquatic ecosystems. MeHg is among the most widespread contaminants that pose severe health risks to humans an...

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) exists widely in the natural water. It is one of the largest active pools of organic carbon on earth and hence plays an important role in the global carbon cycling. As it contains a large number of chromophores, such as benzene ring, carboxyl, hydroxy, carbonyl, etc., it can adsorb sunlight at certain wavelength regio...

Mercury methylation and/or demethylation have been observed in several compartments [soil (saturated soils covered by standing water), floc, periphyton, and water] of the Everglades, a wetland with mercury as one of the major water quality concerns. However, it is still unclear which compartment is the major source or sink due to the lack of estima...

IntroductionSample Preparation for Hg Speciation in Environmental SamplesApplication of GC Technique in Hg Speciation AnalysisApplication of HPLC Technique in Hg Speciation AnalysisApplication of Capillary Electrophoresis Techniques in Hg Speciation AnalysisApplication of X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy in Probing Chemical Microenvironment of HgAppli...

IntroductionAdsorption of Mercury on SolidsRole of Colloids in Mercury AdsorptionConcluding RemarksReferences

A few studies have reported the occurrence of monoethylmercury (CH(3)CH(2)Hg(+)) in the natural environment, but further verification is needed due to the lack of direct evidence and/or uncertainty in analytical procedures. Various analytical techniques were employed to verify the occurrence of CH(3)CH(2)Hg(+) in soil of the Florida Everglades. The...

Methylmercury (MeHg) is recognized as one of the major water quality concerns in the Florida Everglades. Degradation of MeHg in the water is thought to be one of the most important processes to the cycling of MeHg, but there is a lack of quantitative estimations of its effect on the distribution and cycling of MeHg in this ecosystem. Stable isotope...

With field culture experiments and model calculations, the role of light on why in both spring and summer Skeletonema costatum Cleve blooms can occur in the coastal area in East China Sea were studied. The results show that the growth optimal light intensity (I(opt)) of S. costatum increases gradually to a maximum of 121.6 W x m(-2) with temperatur...

An ecological dynamic model for the simulation of two pelagic phytoplankton groups is developed in this article. Model parameters were adjusted and validated based on the light-limited field culture experiments and the mesocosm experiments in the East China Sea (ECS). The calculation comparisons from the proposed model, along with field experiment...

With field culture experiments and model calculations, the natural-light-dependent growth and the optimal light layers in sea water for growth of red tide dinoflagellate Prorocentrum donghaiense Lu were studied in order to analyze the role of light on algal blooms in the coastal area in East China Sea in spring. The results show that the relationsh...

The growth-inhibiting effects of Gemini1231 surfactant on Prorocentrum donghaiense, Alexandrium tamarense, Gymnodinium sp., Heterosigma akashiwo, Skeletonema costatum , Platymonas helgolanidica and Platymonas subcordiforus were investigated. The results demonstrate that the growth of P. donghaiense, A. tamarense and H. akashiwo was strongly inhibit...

The influence of the rhamnolipid biosurfactants produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa on the growth of marine diatom was explored by using 5 kinds of diatom: Pseudo-nitzschia pungens (PS0201-01), Chaetoceros, Didymus, Chaeroeros debilis, Chaetoceros curvisetus, Nitzschia closterium as studied objects. As the concentration of rhamnolipid increased grad...

The algicidal activity of the rhamnolipid biosurfactants (the mixture of Rha-Rha-C10-C10 and Rha-C10-C10) produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa was investigated in the present paper. The results indicated that the biosurfactants had potential algicidal effects on the harmful algal bloom (HAB) species, Heterosigma akashiwo. The growth of H. akashiwo wa...

The inhibiting and killing functions of rhamnolipid biosurfactants produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa on alga cells were studied with Prorocentrum donghaiense as experiment material. The growth of P. donghaiense was inhibited markedly in lower concentration of rhamnolipids, moreover, the alga cell would be killed directly with increasing its using...