Organic and organometallic pollutants

FIGURE132 Interactions of organic and organometallic pollutants in different zones of an aquatic ecosystem. 

FIGURE 13.3 Common organic and organometallic pollutants in aquatic systems, classified according to the criteria of molecule size and polarity. 

Substances that are found in sediments include all the soil pollutants mentioned above and also various organic compounds of an industrial origin such as phthalates, chorophenols, hydrocarbons and organometallic compounds to name but a few. 

In this section some field applications of the various samplers will be discussed in terms of their potential utility in support of regulatory monitoring requirements. This chapter will focus on polar and nonpolar organic pollutants, and organometalics metals will be dealt with in another chapter (Chapter 4.1). 

Xenobiotics enter in the bloodstream, following one of the described absorption routes, are distributed into the body and undertaken by different organs. It is possible that a part of the xenobiotics distributed into the body may be stored in tissues or even in the blood. A word commonly used to refer to storage of a pollutant at higher levels than those found in the environment is bioaccumulation, for example, PAHs, PCBs, dioxins and some organometallic forms of metals bioaccumulate in fat, fluoride and lead in bones etc. Sometimes biomagnification takes place, as a bioaccumulation process within the trophic chain, in indirect relationship with biota. 

Yes indeed, and we make brief mention of these. We must ask, however, the following question. What other chemical elements are incorporated into organic molecules that are of interest to TEQA Priority pollutant organic compounds of environmental interest that incorporate the elements nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur answer this question. GC detectors developed for these elements are of a more recent vintage and include thermionic, flame photometric, and chemiluminescence. In addition, the atomic emission spectroscopic detector (AES) has been recently developed commercially for organometallics. The AES can be tuned to a specific emission wavelength for a particular metal. Development of C-GC-AES techniques have advanced the analytical chemistry of trace metal speciation. 

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