Spectroscopic Techniques and Electrochemical Sensors Technologies for Heavy Metal Ions Detection: A Review

Water is an essential compound for us to sustain as it is a great source of many elements but provides some undesirable substances when to gettingpolluted which effects human health in such a manner that cause many dangerous diseases. This paper presents a review of three different techniques used for heavy metal analysis in potable water.In the first part of paper, various conventional analytical techniques are discussed in detail and a brief comparison is also made. The second part of the paper explains electrochemical methods, which produced rapid, convenient, and reliable decentralized monitoring of trace metals. In the last section,a review on impedance spectroscopy, which is used for characterization of a wide range of materialsis reported

A holistic multimodal approach to the non-invasive analysis of watercolour paintings

A holistic approach using non-invasive multimodal imaging and spectroscopic techniques to study the materials (pigments, drawing materials and paper) and painting techniques of watercolour paintings is presented. The non-invasive imaging and spectroscopic techniques include VIS-NIR reflectance spectroscopy and multispectral imaging, micro-Raman spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) and optical coherence tomography (OCT). The three spectroscopic techniques complement each other in pigment identification. Multispectral imaging (near infrared bands), OCT and micro-Raman complement each other in the visualisation and identification of the drawing material. OCT probes the microstructure and light scattering properties of the substrate while XRF detects the elemental composition that indicates the sizing methods and the filler content . The multiple techniques were applied in a study of forty six 19th century Chinese export watercolours from the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) to examine to what extent the non-invasive analysis techniques employed complement each other and how much useful information about the paintings can be extracted to address art conservation and history questions

Temperature determination of shock layer using spectroscopic techniques

Shock layer temperature profiles are obtained through analysis of radiation from shock layers produced by a blunt body inserted in an arc jet flow. Spectral measurements of N2(+) have been made at 0.5 inch, 1.0 inch, and 1.4 inches from the blunt body. A technique is developed to measure the vibrational and rotational temperatures of N2(+). Temperature profiles from the radiation layers show a high temperature near the shock front and decreasing temperature near the boundary layer. Precise temperature measurements could not be made using this technique due to the limited resolution. Use of a high resolution grating will help to make a more accurate temperature determination. Laser induced fluorescence technique is much better since it gives the scope for selective excitation and a better spacial resolution

Spectrometry: Report of panel

Spectroscopic measurements are required to define the spectral background and provide the detailed spectral information that is essential for the design of species-specific systems and the analysis of data obtained from them. This function of spectroscopic measurements is expected to be an important part of any tropospheric remote-sensing program, and both emission and absorption spectroscopy are relevant in this context. The data from such observations are of value to tropospheric science in their own right, during the initial phases while species-specific techniques and instruments are under development. In addition, there are a number of unresolved problems in tropospheric radiative transfer and spectroscopy which presently limit the accuracy and reliability of all remote sensing methods. Only through a supporting program of spectroscopic measurements can progress be made in improving the understanding of these aspects of radiative transfer and ultimately reaching the desired confidence in the accuracy to species-specific monitoring techniques

Modern Analysis Techniques for Spectroscopic Binaries

Techniques to extract information from spectra of unresolved multi-component systems are revised, with emphasis on recent developments and practical aspects. We review the cross-correlation techniques developed to deal with such spectra, discuss the determination of the broadening function and compare techniques to reconstruct component spectra. The recent results obtained by separating or disentangling the component spectra is summarized. An evaluation is made of possible indeterminacies and random and systematic errors in the component spectra.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, Invited talk to appear in the proceedings of IAU Symp. No. 240 'Binary Stars as Critical Tools and Tests in Contemporary Astrophysics' (Prague, 22-25 August 2006), Eds. W. Hartkopf, E. Guinan & P. Harmanec (Cambridge Univ. Press

Spectroscopic investigation of local mechanical impedance of living cells

The mechanical properties of PC12 living cells have been studied at the nanoscale with a Force Feedback Microscope using two experimental approaches. Firstly, the local mechanical impedance of the cell membrane has been mapped simultaneously to the cell morphology at constant force. As the force of the interaction is gradually increased, we observed the appearance of the sub-membrane cytoskeleton. We shall compare the results obtained with this method with the measurement of other existing techniques. Secondly, a spectroscopic investigation has been performed varying the indentation of the tip in the cell membrane and consequently the force applied on it. In contrast with conventional dynamic atomic force microscopy techniques, here the small oscillation amplitude of the tip is not necessarily imposed at the cantilever first eigenmode. This allows the user to arbitrarily choose the excitation frequency in developing spectroscopic AFM techniques. The mechanical response of the PC12 cell membrane is found to be frequency dependent in the 1 kHz - 10 kHz range. The damping coefficient is reproducibly observed to decrease when the excitation frequency is increased.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

When spectroscopy fails: The measurement of ion pairing

Spectroscopic techniques such as UV/vis, NMR, and Raman are powerful tools for the investigation of chemical speciation in solution. However, it is not widely recognized that such techniques do not always provide reliable information about ion association equilibria. Specifically, spectroscopic measurements do not in general produce thermodynamically meaningful association constants for non-contact ion pairs, where the ions are separated by one or more solvent molecules. Such systems can only be properly quantified by techniques such as dielectric or ultrasonic relaxation, which can detect all ion-pair types (or equilibria), or by traditional thermodynamic methods, which detect the overall level of association. Various types of quantitative data are presented for metal ion/sulfate systems in aqueous solution that demonstrate the inadequacy of the major spectroscopic techniques for the investigation of systems that involve solvent-separated ion pairs. The implications for ion association equilibria in general are briefly discussed