46 research outputs found
Name game : the naming history of the chemical elements : part 2 : turbulent nineteenth century
Name game : the naming history of the chemical elements : part 1 : from antiquity till the end of 18th century
The impact of the mountain barrier on the spread of heavy metal pollution on the example of Gorce Mountains, Southern Poland
The main objective of this study was to determine the content, mobility, and the variability of concentration of zinc, lead, and cadmium in soils from the Gorce Mountains (south Poland), located over 100 km south-east from the potential industrial sources of contamination—zinc-lead sulfide ore mine and smelter in Bukowno, as well as hard coal mines of Silesia region and Kraków Nowa-Huta steelwork. The abovementioned problem is crucial in the context of the traditional mountain farming still extant in the region, as well as intensively developing tourism. The geoaccumulation index and potential ecological risk index were adopted to evaluate soil pollution in the study area and the BCR sequential extraction technique to assess mobility of the abovementioned elements. The obtained results clearly show that the pollution from distant industrial sources in the mountains is detectable. Apart from the increased concentrations of the tested metals in the soil (especially available forms), there is also a strong correlation between the concentrations of lead, zinc, and cadmium, which proves their common source of origin. The main evidence is the fact that differences in the concentrations of the tested metals on the windward and leeward sides were statistically significant. This also means that the studied mountain area, despite relatively low altitudes (up to 1310 m above sea level), constitutes a measurable barrier to the spread of atmospheric pollutants. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10661-022-10316-0
Name game : the naming history of the chemical elements : part 3 : rivalry of scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Different approach to determination of pyrethroid pesticides in ornamental plants
The aim of the presented research was to develop and optimize a methodology, particularly dedicated for the quantification of pyrethroids in ornamental plant material on the basis of a rose (Rosa hybrid) with the use of HPLC chromatography and QuEChERS extraction method. High repeatability and reproducibility of the results were obtained by using acetonitrile as an eluent. The determined limits of detection and quantification for deltamethrin equal 5.2 ng and 9.3 ng per 1 cm3 of analysed solution respectively. For cypermethrin these values were: LOD 1.2 ng, LOQ 5.0 ng per 1 cm3 of solution. It has been shown that solutions of deltamethrin and cypermethrin are of high stability – they can be stored at room temperature for as long as 28 days without a change in the concentration. The experiments presented showed that the QuEChERS extraction of deltamethrin from the tested samples can be performed with efficiency above 93% using acetonitrile as a solvent, magnesium sulphate and sodium acetate as the separation salts. For purification Supel ™ QUE sorbent by Supelco was successfully applied. The described analytical method may be a valuable and relatively cheap tool to control the amounts of these pesticides sprayed in environment, wherever there is a suspicion of their excessive use
Soil pollution with heavy metals in industrial and agricultural areas : a case study of Olkusz district
Soil contamination of areas covered by industrial plants and farms is one of the major
environmental problems whose weight is underestimated in Poland and Europe. Such regions
are usually not as exposed to direct pollution as highly urbanized industrial areas. On the other
hand, they are usually less strictly monitored than protected areas. The District of Olkusz, an
example of such a region, is characterized by well-developed agriculture, regressing local industry
and growing tourism industry. However, it borders with Silesia, a heavily industrized area.
The study reports the condition of arable soils in Olkusz District in terms of their contamination
with lead, cadmium, zinc and copper. The atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) method
was used to determine the concentrations of the metallic elements. The parameters like pH,
content of the clay fraction and content of organic matter have been also taken in consideration
to assess the bioavailability of the metals.
The analytical results showed that, despite the decreasing impact of the local industry,
levels of concentration of all the studied metals are significantly higher than their average concentration
in Polish soils. Moreover, all the calculated Pearson correlation coefficients between
concentrations of the metals were above 0.9, which means they correlate each other strongly.
The impact of the local pollutants (mainly Bukowno smelter) in connection with the proximity
of the Silesia and the high vulnerability for contamination of the soils precludes agricultural use
of the ground in at least half of the cases
Heterogeneous Fenton- and photo-Fenton-like catalytic degradation of emerging pollutants using clays synthesized from aluminum industrial wastes
Catalytic photodegradation of organic compounds using TiO2/pillared clays synthesized using a nonconventional aluminum source
This study evaluates the photocatalytic degradation of 2,6-dichlorophenol (2,6-DCP), triclosan (TCS) and bisphenol A (BPA) by ultraviolet (UV) and visible (VIS) light in the presence of TiO2/catalysts synthesized by wet impregnation followed by calcination. The catalyst supports used were three alumina pillared clays (Al-PILC) synthesized using various aluminum sources and montmorillonite (Mt) as raw material. One of the Al-PILC was prepared following the conventional method (Al-PILCCM), using a commercial aluminum salt, and the other two were synthesized using a saline slag, with the aluminum used being extracted with the alkaline (Al-PILCBE) or the acid (Al-PILCAE) method. Mt was impregnated with various amounts of titanium (1, 5, 10, and 20 wt% Ti) and evaluated for the photodegradation of the aforementioned pollutants, comparing the results with those obtained using commercial anatase. Due to the higher conversion rates, 10 and 20 wt% Ti were chosen to impregnate the Al-PILC and to evaluate the photocatalytic performance. All materials were characterized by several techniques, which confirmed the successful formation of TiO2 in the anatase phase. In all cases, photodegradation was higher when using UV light and the most photodegraded pollutant was TCS (85.15 ± 0.49%), followed by 2,6-DCP (65.43 ± 0.79%) and, to a lesser degree, BPA (36.15 ± 0.65%). Al-PILC showed higher photodegradation percentages, with Al-PILCAE exhibiting the highest values for both types of light. An analysis of the photoproducts by HPLC-MS suggested that the preferred pathway for TCS and 2,6-DCP photodegradation depends on the type of light used.The authors are grateful for financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) through project PID2020-112656RB-C21. YC thanks the Universidad Pública de Navarra for a pre-doctoral grant (IberusTalent, European Union's H2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement N° 801586). AG also thanks Banco Santander for funding via the Research Intensification Program
Imaging of Sources in Heavy-Ion Reactions
Imaging of sources from data within the intensity interferometry is
discussed. In the two-pion case, the relative pion source function may be
determined through the Fourier transformation of the correlation function. In
the proton-proton case, the discretized source function may be fitted to the
correlation data.Comment: 12 pages, 3 postscript figures, accepted Physics Letters