Zinc speciation developments

Environmental Fate. Zinc partitions to the air, water, and soil (Callahan et al. 1979 Guy and Chakrabarti 1976 Houba et al. 1983 Pita and Hyne 1975). Zinc occurs in the environment mainly in the +2 oxidation state (Lindsey 1979). Adsorption is the dominant fate of zinc, resulting in enrichment of zinc in suspended and bed sediments (Callahan et al. 1979). The mobility of zinc in soil has been characterized (Base and Sharp 1983 Bergkvist et al. 1989 EPA 1980d Hermann and Neumann-Mahikau 1985 Kalbasi et al. 1978 Saeed and Fox 1977 Tyler and McBride 1982). No estimate for the atmospheric lifetime of zinc is available. Development of pertinent data on the atmospheric processes important for zinc speciation in the atmosphere would be helpful. Development of this information would permit construction of a comprehensive model for the transport and interaction of zinc not only in air but in other media as well. Transformation in air and water can occur as a result of changes in chemical speciation (Anderson et al. 1988 Callahan et al. 1979 EPA 1980d Stokinger 1981). Data that describe the transformation processes for zinc in soil or the fate of zinc in soil are needed. A model of zinc flux from all environmental compartments would be useful for providing information on the overall environmental fate of zinc. 

Marin A, Lopez-Gonzalvez A, Barbas C. Development and validation of extraction methods for determination of zinc and arsenic speciation in soils using focused ultrasound application to heavy metal study in mud and soils. Anal. Chim. Acta 2001 442 305-318. 

An interesting application of speciation is in the study of changes in the distribution of certain metals after administration of drugs. Falchuk used gel filtration combined with flame atomic absorption spectrometry to study effects of the administration of ACTH on the zinc distribution in serum. Kamel et ai. developed methods to follow the distribution of gold. 

Florence, T.M. (1977) Trace metal species in fresh waters. Water Res., 11, 681-687. Florence, T.M. (1982) Development of physicochemical speciation procedures to investigate the toxicity of copper, lead, cadmium and zinc towards aquatic biota. Anal. Chim. Acta, 141, 73-94. 

---