Metals and metalloids

Microbial leaching of metals from ores is a promising adjunct to more aggressive metal recovery technologies (77), but is generally achieved by oxidative processes that generate very acidic waters. It seems unlikely that similar approaches will be of much value in removing contaminant metals and metalloids from soils. 

In the past, removing metal and metalloid contaminants from soil has been impossible, and site clean-up has meant excavation and disposal in a secure landfill. An exciting new approach to this problem is phytoextraction, where plants are used to extract contaminants from the soil and harvested. Immobilization and Toxicity-Minimization. 

Arsenic is another element with different bioavailabiUty in its different redox states. Arsenic is not known to be an essential nutrient for eukaryotes, but arsenate (As(V)) and arsenite (As(III)) are toxic, with the latter being rather more so, at least to mammals. Nevertheless, some microorganisms grow at the expense of reducing arsenate to arsenite (81), while others are able to reduce these species to more reduced forms. In this case it is known that the element can be immobilized as an insoluble polymetallic sulfide by sulfate reducing bacteria, presumably adventitiously due to the production of hydrogen sulfide (82). Indeed many contaminant metal and metalloid ions can be immobilized as metal sulfides by sulfate reducing bacteria. 

B. Venugopal and T. D. Luckey, Metal Toxicity in Mammals Chemical Toxicity of Metals and Metalloids, Vol. 2, Plenum Press, New York, 1978. 

Metalliding. MetaUiding, a General Electric Company process (9), is a high temperature electrolytic technique in which an anode and a cathode are suspended in a molten fluoride salt bath. As a direct current is passed from the anode to the cathode, the anode material diffuses into the surface of the cathode, which produces a uniform, pore-free alloy rather than the typical plate usually associated with electrolytic processes. The process is called metalliding because it encompasses the interaction, mostly in the soHd state, of many metals and metalloids ranging from beryUium to uranium. It is operated at 500—1200°C in an inert atmosphere and a metal vessel the coulombic yields are usually quantitative, and processing times are short controUed... 

Metals and metalloids that form alkyl compounds, eg, methylmercury and methylarsenic acid, tributjltin, deserve special concern because these compounds are volatile and accumulate in cells they are poisonous to the central nervous system of higher organisms. Because methylmercury or other metal alkyls may be produced at a rate faster than it is degraded by other organisms, it may accumulate in higher organisms such as fish. Hg species are also reduced to elementary Hg which is soluble in water but lost by volatilization to the atmosphere (40). 

Azoles can form stable compounds in which metallic and metalloid atoms are linked to nitrogen. For example, pyrazoles and imidazoles Af-substituted by B, Si, P and Hg groups are made in this way. Imidazoles with a free NH group can be Af-trimethylsilylated and Af-cyanated (with cyanogen bromide). Imidazoles of low basicity can be Af-nitrated. 

FRACTIONATION OF TRACE METALS AND METALLOIDS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOLIDS ... 

Despite the recent efforts for settling operational conditions for metal and metalloid fractionation, conventional batch sequential extraction schemes lack automation and are rather time consuming and laborious. Two additional main problems are the phase overlapping and possible re-adsorption of released elements. 

BS ISO 15202 Metals and metalloids Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry... 

MDHS 91 Metals and metalloids m workplace air by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry... 

Amides are one of the most prolific classes of ligand and the subject of metal and metalloid amides has been extensively reviewed. ... 

A malleable substance (from rhe Latin word for hammer ) is one that can be hammered into thin sheets (Fig. B. 11). A ductile substance (from the Latin word for drawing out ) is one that can be drawn out into wires. Copper, for example, is a metal. It conducts electricity, has a luster when polished, and is malleable. It is so ductile that it is readily drawn out to form electrical wires. Sulfur, on the other hand, is a nonmetal. This brittle yellow solid does not conduct electricity, cannot be hammered into thin sheets, and cannot be drawn out into wires. The distinctions between metals and metalloids and between metalloids and nonmetals are not very precise (and not always made), but the metalloids are often taken to be the seven elements shown in Fig. B.12 on a diagonal band between the metals on the left and the nonmetals on the right. 

A quite surprising development, even to experienced workers in elemental-fluorine chemistry, has been the synthesis of trifluoromethyl organometallic compounds by direct fluorination of metal alkyls (25). Even more surprising is the fact that, for certain metal and metalloid systems, such as the reaction of elemental fluorine with tetramethyl-germane, this t5rpe of low-temperature synthesis is a practical method 26) for the laboratory preparation of the perfluoro analog. 

Abd-El-Aziz AS (ed) (2003) Metal- and metalloid-containing macromolecules. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim... 

Infrared Intensities of Metal Carbonyl Stretching Vibrations, 10, 199 Infrared and Raman Studies of w-Complexes, 1, 239 Insertion Reactions of Compounds of Metals and Metalloids, 5, 225 Insertion Reactions of Transition Metal-Carbon o-Bonded Compounds I Carbon Monoxide Insertion, 11, 88... 

C08-0086. We list polonium as a metal, but some chemists classify it as a metalloid. List other metals that might be expected to show properties in between those of metals and metalloids. 

There is concern over the toxicity of a nnmber of metals and metalloids, and their oxyanions. As for antibiotics, the genes for resistance are often plasmid-bome. There are several mechanisms that may operate—redaction, methylation, efflnx, and the synthesis of metal-binding metallothioneins. The following text illustrates aspects of these mechanisms. 

Methylation of both metals and metalloids has been observed for both fungi and bacteria. These metabolites may, however, be toxic to higher biota as a result of their volatility. The Minamata syndrome represents the classic example of the toxicity of forms of methylated Hg to man, even though the formation of Hg(CH3)2 was probably the result of both biotic and abiotic reactions. 

Parts 1 through 5 of this chapter provide an outline of the reactions involved in the biodegradation of aliphatic esters, ethers, nitramines, phosphonates and sulfonates, and organic compounds of metals and metalloids. 

PART 5 DEGRADATION OF ORGANIC COMPOUNDS OF METALS AND METALLOIDS... 

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