The majority of the area contaminated by the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident is covered by forest. To facilitate effective countermeasure strategies to mitigate forest contamination, we simulated the spatio-temporal dynamics of radiocesium deposited into Japanese forest ecosystems in 2011 using a model that was developed after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The simulation revealed that the radiocesium inventories in tree and soil surface organic layer components drop rapidly during the first two years after the fallout. Over a period of one to two years, the radiocesium is predicted to move from the tree and surface organic soil to the mineral soil, which eventually becomes the largest radiocesium reservoir within forest ecosystems. Although the uncertainty of our simulations should be considered, the results provide a basis for understanding and anticipating the future dynamics of radiocesium in Japanese forests following the Fukushima accident.

The adsorption of 1-(1-naphthyl)ethylamine (NEA) on platinum surfaces has been characterized by reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) both under ultrahigh vacuum and in situ from liquid solutions. The main focus of this study was to identify the mechanism by which single enantiomers of NEA bestow chirality on the platinum surface. Evidence was acquired for both of the prevailing explanations available in the literature for the NEA behavior: formation of supramolecular chiral templates and complexation of individual modifiers with the reactant. Indeed, TPD titrations of NEA-modified Pt(111) using propylene oxide (PO) as a chiral probe point to a relative enhancement in the adsorption of one enantiomer over the other at intermediate NEA coverages, which is the behavior expected from the templating mechanism. However, a difference in adsorption energetics was also observed. Both the TPD and RAIRS data suggest possible interactions between the adsorbed NEA and adjacent PO that differ according to the relative chirality of the two compounds. The NEA uptake from solution displays additional enantioselectivity, in particular when the adsorption of enantiopure compounds is compared with that of racemic mixtures, and also points to possible adsorption changes induced by ethyl pyruvate, a common reactant in chiral hydrogenation processes.

To elucidate the temporal changes in the radiocesium distribution in forests contaminated by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, we monitored the 137Cs concentration and inventory within forests from 2011 to 2015 across nine plots containing variable tree species and different contamination levels. The 137Cs concentrations in needles and branches decreased exponentially at all coniferous plots, with effective ecological half-lives of 0.45–1.55 yr for needles and 0.83–1.69 yr for branches. By contrast, the 137Cs concentration in deciduous konara oak leaves did not change over the five years. The concentration of 137Cs in oak wood increased by 37–75%, whereas that in Japanese red pine decreased by 63% over the five years. In Japanese cedar and hinoki cypress, the 137Cs concentration in wood showed an increasing trend in half of the plots. The changes in 137Cs in the organic and mineral soil layers were not strongly related to the tree species or contamination level. Our multi-site, multi-species monitoring results revealed that the pattern of temporal changes in radiocesium in the 9 forest plots was similar overall; however, changes in 137Cs in needles/leaves and wood differed among tree species.

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In forest soils contaminated by radiocesium ( 134 Cs and 137 Cs), deposition from the Fukushima nuclear accident, clay minerals might play important roles in long-term cesium (Cs) dynamics through sorption. To determine whether radiocesium can be retained within the organic layer and the upper mineral soil layers in the Fukushima region, we investigated the vertical distribution of 134 Cs and 137 Cs and the clay mineral composition in five soil profiles of varying radiocesium deposition levels and vegetation types. X-ray diffraction analyses and oxalate extraction suggested that hydroxy-interlayered vermiculites and shortrange-ordered aluminum (Al) and iron (Fe) compounds (i.e, allophane and ferrihydrite) were major clay mineral species of the upper soil layers. The vertical soil distribution of 134 Cs and 137 Cs suggested that most of them were retained in the organic layer and upper mineral soil layer under different levels of deposition. Within 1.5 years after the accident, both 134 Cs and 137 Cs were leached from the organic layer, and most of these (59-73%) were accumulated in the upper soil layer (0-5 cm). The proportion of 137 Cs (or 134 Cs) leaching from the organic layer was greater at sites receiving greater amounts of precipitation. The substantial accumulation of 137 Cs in the upper soil layer, irrespective of the 137 Cs deposition level or clay mineral composition, suggests that sorption capacities of clays and organic matter are sufficiently high to retain 137 Cs in the surface soil during at least the initial stage of contamination.