Chromium pollution

Bacteria indigenous to Cr(VI)-polluted areas are Cr(VI) tolerant and/or resistant and have been considered as potential candidates for bioremediation of Cr(VI)-contaminated sites.16 However, the ability of bacteria to reduce Cr(VI) to the less-toxic Cr(III) compounds may produce reactive intermediates (such as Cr(V), Cr(IV), radicals), which are known to be active genotoxins and are likely to be carcinogenic.17 Therefore, the formation and lifetimes of Cr(V) intermediates, produced via bacterial reduction of Cr(VI), need to be evaluated carefully if microorganisms are to be employed as a means for remediation of chromium-polluted subsurface environments. Similarly, Cr(V) accumulation should first be monitored when considering plants and algae as biosorption materials for the bioremediation in the event of chromium pollution.18... 

Zhang J, LiX. 1987. Chromium pollution of soil and water in Jinzhou. Journal of Chinese Prev Med 21 262-264. 

Seymour, P. Chromium Pollution An Experiment Adapted for Freshman Engineering Students, J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 927-928. Shooter, D. Nitrogen Dioxide and its Determination in the Atmosphere— A Simple Method for Surveying Ambient Pollution Concentrations, J. Chem. Educ. 1993, 70, A133-A140. Solomon, S. Oliver-Hoyo, M. Hur, C. Generating Water-Soluble Noxious Gases An Overhead Projector Demonstration, J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 1581-1582. 

Environmental problems in the leather industry due to chromium pollution can be solved, but are expensive and the alternatives are not without their own problems. 

On his return home in 1911, Honda was appointed professor of physies at the new Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, in the north of Japan this institution had been established only in 1906, when the finance minister twisted the arm of an industrialist who had made himself unpopular because of pollution eaused by his copper mines and extracted the necessary funds to build the new university. A provisional institute of physical and chemical research was initiated in 1916, divided into a part devoted to novel plastics and another to metals. This proved to be Honda s lifetime domain he assembled a lively team of young physicists and chemists. In the same year, Honda invented a high-cobalt steel also containing tungsten and chromium, which had by far the highest coercivity of any permanent-magnet material then known. He called it KS steel, for K. Sumitomo, one of his sponsors, and it made Honda famous. 

The suitability of gas absorption as a pollution control method is generally dependent on the following factors 1) availability of suitable solvent 2) required removal efficiency 3) pollutant concentration in the inlet vapor 4) capacity required for handling waste gas and, 5) recovery value of the pollutant(s) or the disposal cost of the unrecoverable solvent. Packed-bed scrubbers are typically used in the chemical, aluminum, coke and ferro-alloy, food and agriculture, and chromium electroplating industries. 

Further oxidation of an aldehyde product to the corresponding carboxylic acid does not take place. Moreover, the SM>ern oxidation reaction does not require the use of toxic and pollutant chromium reagents. The activated DMSO species, however, are stable only at low temperature, which might in some cases be a drawback of this method. 

The desire to replace cadmium is generally attributed to its toxicity, both in terms of process pollution and product corrosion, and several alternatives are feasible thicker zinc, tin-zinc alloy or tin-nickel alloy depending upon the precise application " . The demise of decorative nickel-chrome systems in the automotive industries of the world is partly due to cost and partly to market image, and not to technical performance where major improvements took place in the period 1960-1975 through the establishment of duplex nickel under-layers and micro discontinuous chromium top-layers. In the 1980s the trend has been towards black finishes produced generally by powder-applied epoxy polymers. 

Mass Balance Estimates. Based on National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System monitoring reports, the total daily discharge of trace elements into the main stem Willamette River is of the order of 100 pounds per day. Seventy-five percent of the total is zinc with the bulk of the remainder due to chromium and copper. Table 6 identifies industrial and natural sources of trace elements into the Willamette basin. The table indicates that an average of 97 percent of all trace element loading to the basin is natural in origin. The natural component is due to weathering of soil and rocks in the basin and this... 

Table 13.8 identifies common pollutants in aqueous effluents. Of the metals, the most toxic are salts of the heavy metals beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc. 

The pollutants of concern are the same as in wet basic oxygen furnaces, but the concentration of metals (primarily lead and zinc, but also arsenic, cadmium, copper, chromium, and selenium) in wastewater is higher because of the higher percentage of scrap charged. Wastewater treatment operations are similar to those for the wet basic oxygen furnaces, including sedimentation in clarifiers or thickeners and recycle of the water.14... 

Pickling done before coating may use a mildly acidic bath such spent liquor is not considered hazardous. Waste pickle liquor flows typically range between 10 and 20 gal/t of pickled product. Rinsewater flows may range from less than 70 gal/t for bar products to more than 1000 gal/t for certain flat-rolled products. The principal pollutants in rinsewater include TSS, dissolved iron, and metals. For carbon steel operations, the principal metals are lead and zinc for specialty and stainless steels the metals include chromium and nickel.15... 

Many toxic pollutants were detected in the process wastewaters from metal molding and casting processes. The toxic pollutants detected most frequently in concentrations at or above 0.1 mg/L were phenolic compounds and heavy metals. The pollutants include 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,4-dimethyl-phenol, phenol, 2-ethylhexyl, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc. Each type of operation in the foundry industry can produce different types of pollutants in the wastewater stream. Also, because each subcategory operation often involves different processes, pollutant concentrations per casting metals may vary. 

Organic pollutants Pesticides Metals Antimony Arsenic Asbestos Beryllium Cadmium Chromium Copper Cyanide Lead Mercury Nickel Selenium Silver Thallium Zinc... 

The environmental impact of the two most toxic pollutants, nickel and chromium, is briefly presented in the following.11617 Significant concentrations of these elements pass through conventional treatment plants. 

The dissolved inorganic pollutants for the coil coating category are hexavalent chromium, chromium (total), copper, lead, nickel, zinc, cadmium, iron, and phosphorus. Removal of these inorganics is often... 

Concentrations of Pollutants Found in the Hexavalent Chromium Subcategory of Raw Wastewater... 

Some innovating treatment technologies may be introduced in the treatment of wastewater generated in the aluminum fluoride industry to make its effluent safer. The ion exchange process can be applied to the clarified solution to remove copper and chromium. At a very low concentration, these two pollutants can be removed by xanthate precipitation.24 A combination of lime and ferric sulfate coagulation will effectively reduce arsenic concentration in the wastewater. 

Toxic pollutants found in the mercury cell wastewater stream include mercury and some heavy metals like chromium and others stated in Table 22.8, some of them are corrosion products of reactions between chlorine and the plant materials of construction. Virtually, most of these pollutants are generally removed by sulfide precipitation followed by settling or filtration. Prior to treatment, sodium hydrosulfide is used to precipitate mercury sulfide, which is removed through filtration process in the wastewater stream. The tail gas scrubber water is often recycled as brine make-up water. Reduction, adsorption on activated carbon, ion exchange, and some chemical treatments are some of the processes employed in the treatment of wastewater in this cell. Sodium salts such as sodium bisulfite, sodium hydrosulfite, sodium sulfide, and sodium borohydride are also employed in the treatment of the wastewater in this cell28 (Figure 22.5). 

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