Organic-mineral compartment

As shown in Fig. 3, CHEMGL considers 10 major well-mixed compartments air boundary layer, free troposphere, stratosphere, surface water, surface soil, vadose soil, sediment, ground water zone, plant foliage and plant route. In each compartment, several phases are included, for example, air, water and solids (organic matter, mineral matter). A volume fraction is used to express the ratio of the phase volume to the bulk compartment volume. Furthermore, each compartment is assumed to be a completely mixed box, which means all environmental properties and the chemical concentrations are uniform in a compartment. In addition, the environmental properties are assumed to not change with time. Other assumptions made in the model include continuous emissions to the compartments, equilibrium between different phases within each compartment and first-order irreversible loss rate within each compartment [38]. 

The regulation of biogeochemical cycles by microbial populations is of most direct importance in the cycling of N, S, P, and C. Most of the ecosystem pool of these elements resides as organic forms in forest floor and mineral soil compartments. These organic complexes are subjected to microbial transformations, which regulate nitrate, sulfate and phosphate ions dynamics and availability. In turn, this influences indirectly... 

Biomineralization. The processes controlling biomineralization are summarized in Fig. 6.1c. Organized biopolymers at the sites of mineralization are essential to these processes. In unicellular organisms these macromolecules act primarily as spatial boundaries through which ions are selectively transported to produce localized supersaturation within discrete cellular compartments. In many instances, particularity in organisms such as the diatoms that deposit shells of amorphous silica, the final shape of the mineral appears to be dictated by the ultrastrucure of the membrane-bound compartment. Thus, a diversity of mineral shapes can be biologi-... 

Phytoremediation of organic xenobiotics is generally based on mineralization or more frequently on degradation/transformation of the xenobiotics to environmentally less dangerous compounds, which are fixed in cell compartments or stored in the vacuole as soluble products or exuded back to the environment. Affection of the metabolic pathway by suppression or enhancement of expression of enzyme leading particular... 

Unilamellar vesicles have been used as a reactor for the synthesis of nanos-meter-scale magnetic particles (13,14). By adding alkaline solution to vesicles containing intravesicular solutions of Fe2+ and Fe3+, the Fe /Fe resulted in the formation of membrane-bound discrete particles of different ion oxide particles. These results together with the particle formation in microemulsion are not only of interest in colloid chemistry but also have significance in mineralization in biosystems, such as magnetotactic bacteria, where particles are formed within enclosed organic compartments. 

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