Research in environmental chemistry

Ronald E. Hester is Professor of Chemistry in the University of York. He was for short periods a research fellow in Cambridge and an assistant professor at Cornell before being appointed to a lectureship in chemistry in York in 1965. He has been a full professor in York since 1983. His more than 300 publications are mainly in the area of vibrational spectroscopy, latterly focusing on time-resolved studies of photoreaction intermediates and on biomolecular systems in solution. He is active in environmental chemistry and is a founder member and former chairman of the Environment Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and editor of Industry and the Environment in Perspective (RSC, 1983) and Understanding Our Environment (RSC, 1986). As a member of the Council of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council and several of its sub-committees, panels and boards, he has been heavily involved in national science policy and administration. He was, from 1991-93, a member of the UK Department of the Environment Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances and is currently a member of the Publications and Information Board of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

Dr Georg Geisler is a product safety expert and modeller working with RCC Ltd, a Contract Research Organisation based in Basel, Switzerland. In this function, he conducts environmental risk assessments of pesticides, biocides and other chemicals, as well as safety assessments for pesticide residues in the food chain. In 2003, Georg Geisler earned his Ph.D. on environmental life-cycle assessment of pesticides at ETH Zurich. In 1999, he had received a Diploma in environmental chemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena, Germany. 

Principles and Characteristics The fastest growing area in elemental analysis is in the use of hyphenated techniques for speciation measurement. Elemental spe-ciation analysis, defined as the qualitative identification and quantitative determination of the individual chemical forms that comprise the total concentration of an element in a sample, has become an important field of research in analytical chemistry. Speciation or the process yielding evidence of the molecular form of an analyte, has relevance in the fields of food, the environment, and occupational health analysis, and involves analytical chemists as well as legislators. The environmental and toxicological effects of a metal often depend on its forms. The determination of the total metal content... 

The analysis of environmental TPs has become a major trend in environmental chemistry, and increasingly, researchers are taking this a step further in proposing complex transformation pathways. It is expected to see a gradual shift from parent compound analysis to the analysis of metabolites and TPs. It is evident that more research is needed to determine the breakdown pathways and to evaluate the fate of TPs. Therefore, development of future generic analytical protocols should permit the simultaneous determination of parent compounds and their metabolites. 

John W. Birks Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado... 

Benoit, J. M., Fitzgerald, W. F. Damman, A. W. H. 1998. The biogeochemistry of an ombrotrophic bog Evaluation of use as an archive of atmospheric mercury deposition. Environmental Research, 78, 118-133. Engstrom, D.R. Swain, E.B. 1997. Recent declines in atmospheric mercury deposition in the upper Midwest. Environmental Science and Technology, 31, 960-967. Engstrom, D.R., Swain, E.B., Henning, T.A., Brigham, M.E. Brezonik, P.L. 1994. Atmospheric Mercury Deposition to Lakes and Watersheds - a Quantitative Reconstruction from Multiple Sediment Cores. In Environmental Chemistry of Lakes and Reservoirs. 33-66. 

Research in green chemistry is making dramatic achievements in the design of chemicals, chemical syntheses, and chemical processes that are environmentally benign and economically feasible. 

What we have covered in this chapter barely scratches the surface of a vast area of applications of colloidal phenomena in chemical and materials processing industries and in environmental and other operations. There are many fundamental, as well as practical, problems in the above topics (especially ones involving polymers, polyelectrolytes, and polymer-colloid and polymer-surfactant mixtures) that are currently areas of active research in engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology. Some of the references cited at the end of this chapter contain good reviews of topics that are extensions of what we have covered in this chapter (see, e.g., Elimelech et al. 1995, Hirtzel and Rajagopalan 1985, Israelachvili 1991, Gregory 1989, and O Melia 1990). 

Reasons for interest in the catalyzed reactions of NO, CO, and COz are many and varied. Nitric oxide, for example, is an odd electron, hetero-nuclear diatomic which is the parent member of the environmentally hazardous oxides of nitrogen. Its decomposition and reduction reactions, which occur only in the presence of catalysts, provide a stimulus to research in nitrosyl chemistry. From a different perspective, the catalyzed reactions of CO and COz have attracted attention because of the need to develop hydrocarbon sources that are alternatives to petroleum. Carbon dioxide is one of the most abundant sources of carbon available, but its utilization will require a cheap and plentiful source of hydrogen for reduction, and the development of catalysts that will permit reduction to take place under mild conditions. The use of carbon monoxide in the development of alternative hydrocarbon sources is better defined at this time, being directly linked to coal utilization. The conversion of coal to substitute natural gas (SNG), hydrocarbons, and organic chemicals is based on the hydrogen reduction of CO via methanation and the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Notable successes using heterogeneous catalysts have been achieved in this area, but most mechanistic proposals remain unproven, and overall efficiencies can still be improved. 

I consider it a privilege to see my chosen subject grow. My interest in Environmental Chemistry dates back to my early college days in Vienna. I received significant impulses during my postdoctoral period at the University of California and my interest slowly developed during my time with the National Research Council of Canada, before I could devote my full time of Environmental Chemistry, here in Amsterdam. I hope this Handbook may help deepen the interest of other scientists in this subject. 

Stanley E. Manahan is a professor of chemistry at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he has been on the faculty since 1965, and is president of ChemChar Research, Inc., a firm developing nonincinerative thermochemical waste treatment processes. He received his A.B. in chemistry from Emporia State University in 1960 and his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Kansas in 1965. Since 1968, his primary research and professional activities have been in environmental chemistry, toxicological chemistry, and waste treatment. He teaches courses on environmental chemistry, hazardous wastes, toxicological chemistry, and analytical chemistry. He has lectured on these topics throughout the United States as an American Chemical Society local section tour speaker, in Puerto Rico, at Hokkaido University in Japan, at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City, and at the University of the Andes in Merida, Venezuela. He was the recipient of the Year 2000 Award of the environmental chemistry division of the Italian Chemical Society. 

Water quality projects such as those described below have been shown to be effective methods for engaging students in environmental chemistry courses for majors (Juhl et al. 1997) and for nonscience majors (Lunsford et al. 2007). When the water quality research projects were conducted, Chemistry and the Environment was linked to a world geography course as part of a learning community. Poor water quality and access to potable water were a global environmental theme for both courses. Consequently, the chemistry research projects focused primarily on water analysis. Field water testing kits, atomic absorption spectroscopy, and fluorescence methods (typically for biological con-... 

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