Physicochemical Properties of Pollutants

Just as there are a large number of pollutants in our environment, so there are many factors that affect the toxicity of these pollutants. The major factors affecting pollutant toxicity include physicochemical properties of pollutants, mode of exposure, time, environmental factors, interaction, biological factors, and nutritional factors. These parameters that modify the toxic action of a toxicant are examined in this chapter. 

Characteristics such as whether a pollutant is solid, liquid, or gas whether it is soluble in water or lipid and whether it is organic or inorganic, ionized or nonionized, etc., can affect the ultimate toxicity of the pollutant. For example, since membranes are more permeable to a nonionized than an ionized substance, a nonionized substance will generally have a higher toxicity than an ionized substance. 

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These treatments manipulate selected physicochemical properties of pollutants in such a way that they are either rendered less harmful (or even virtually harmless in some cases) or else removed from the target medium. They are based on redox, acid-base, complexation, electrochemical, solubility, and catalytic principles, as discussed below. 

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