Measurement of Environmental Pollution: Types and Techniques

Since the onset of industrial revolution is up till the recent surge in technological processes, environmental pollution has grown at an alarming rate causing distress to living beings and irreplaceable damage to the earth. With the recognition of the severity of this environmental damage and increase in interest of using technological advancement, a number of successful pollution control strategies have emerged over the years. However, the measurement and quantification of environmental pollution is the most pragmatic first step for identifying various management and mitigation strategies to control environmental pollution. This chapter aims to study a range of proven measurement techniques for quantitatively determining the concentration of various environmental pollutants in the atmosphere. This is particularly important in the formulation of cost-effective control measures and strategies for environmental pollution. Furthermore, to elucidate the concept of pollution measurement, certain parameters which are considered of high importance for environmental monitoring and reflect the quality of a healthy (or unhealthy) environment, especially with respect to soil, water and air, are also discussed in the initial parts of the chapter

Proficient Photocatalytic and Sonocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants Using CuO Nanoparticles

In recent years, due to the advancement in nanotechnology, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), especially sonocatalysis and photocatalysis, have become a topic of interest for the elimination of pollutants from contaminated water. In the research work reported here, an attempt has been made to study and establish a physicochemical mechanism for the catalytic activity of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) in AOPs using the degradation of dyes as model contaminants. CuO NPs exhibited brilliant sonocatalytic and photocatalytic activities for the degradation of a cationic dye (Victoria Blue) as well as an anionic dye (Direct Red 81). The degradation efficiency of CuO NPs was calculated by analysing the variation in the absorbance of dye under a UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The influence of different operating parameters on the catalytic activity of CuO NPs, such as the amount of catalysts dose, pH of the solution, and the initial dye concentration, was thoroughly investigated. In addition, the kinetic process for the degradation was also examined. It was observed that both dyes exhibited and followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics relation. The rate constant for sonocatalysis was high as compared to photocatalysis. The rate constant for both sonocatalysis and photocatalysis was successfully established, and reusability tests were done to ensure the stability of the used catalysts. To get an insight into the degradation mechanism, experiments were performed by using ⋅OH radical scavengers. The efficacy of CuO NPs for dye decolorization was found to be superior for the sonocatalyst than the photocatalyst