Evaluation of ionic pollutants of acid fog and rain using a factor analysis and back trajectories.

Fog and rain water samples were collected at the same time in the Akita Hachimantai mountain range in northern Japan from June to September in 1998 and 1999. The various ion concentrations in these samples were analyzed, and the fog droplet sizes were measured for each fog event. As the fog droplet size increased, the ion concentration decreased. The slope of log-log plots of the concentration versus the droplet size differed with the kind of ion. In order to characterize the air pollutant, moreover, these data were quantitatively analyzed by an oblique rotational factor analysis. We found that three factors were extracted as the air pollutant source: (NH4)2SO4, acids (HNO3 + H2SO4) and sea-salt. Combining the factor analysis with the 72 h back-trajectory at 850 hPa level, we found that the contribution of each factor varied with the transport pattern of air masses.     

Structural impacts on thallus and algal cell components of two lichen species in response to low-level air pollution in pacific northwest forests.

Lichens have long been regarded as bioindicators of air pollution, and structural studies typically have indicated negative impacts in highly polluted areas. In this research, Parmelia sulcata and Platismatia glauca were collected from one clean and two polluted sites in the Pacific Northwest forests of the United States to investigate the anatomical and ultrastructural responses of relatively resistant lichens to moderate air pollution. Light microscopy of polluted materials revealed only slight increases in the algal cell proportions of the thallus, and a decrease in the fungal cells of the medulla. Using transmission electron microscopy, increased lipid droplets in the cytoplasm and an increase in the cell wall thickness of the photobionts were found in the polluted lichens. These results were compared with physiological data in which the net carbon uptake did not show any significant differences; however, the total chlorophyll content was heightened in the polluted samples. The increased total chlorophyll content and the absence of any changes in the algal cell proportions of the polluted samples suggest that the photobionts possessed a higher chlorophyll content per unit volume of the photobiont at polluted sites. The results also indicate that lichens have altered their storage allocation in different cellular compartments. This may be a result of symbiotic readjustment(s) between the photobiont and the mycobiont. In comparison with the physiological results from these two species, these changes do not represent damaging effects by low-level air pollution.     

Photochemical reactions in the tropospheric aqueous phase and on particulate matter

This paper is a tutorial review in the field of atmospheric chemistry. It describes some recent developments in tropospheric photochemistry in the aqueous phase and on particulate matter. The main focus is regarding the transformation processes that photochemical reactions induce on organic compounds. The relevant reactions can take place both on the surface of dispersed particles and within liquid droplets (e.g. cloud, fog, mist, dew). Direct and sensitised photolysis and the photogeneration of radical species are the main processes involved. Direct photolysis can be very important in the transformation of particle-adsorbed compounds. The significance of direct photolysis depends on the substrate under consideration and on the colour of the particle: dark carbonaceous material shields light, therefore protecting the adsorbed molecules from photodegradation, while a much lower protection is afforded for the light-shaded mineral fraction of particulate. Particulate matter is also rich in photosensitisers (e.g. quinones and aromatic carbonyls), partially derived from PAH photodegradation. These compounds can induce degradation of other molecules upon radiation absorption. Interestingly, substrates such as methoxyphenols, major constituents of wood-smoke aerosol, can also enhance the degradation of some sensitisers. Photosensitised processes in the tropospheric aqueous phase have been much less studied: it will be interesting to assess the photochemical properties of Humic-Like Substances (HULIS) that are major components of liquid droplets. The main photochemical sources of reactive radical species in aqueous solution and on particulate matter are hydrogen peroxide, nitrate, nitrite, and Fe(iii) compounds and oxides. The photogeneration of hydroxyl radicals can be important in polluted areas, while their transfer from the gas phase and dark generation are usually prevailing on an average continental scale. The reactions involving hydroxyl radicals can induce very fast transformation of compounds reacting with (*)OH at a diffusion-controlled rate (10(10) M(-1) s(-1)), with time scales of an hour or less. The hydroxyl-induced reactivity in solution can be faster than in the gas phase, influencing the degradation kinetics of water-soluble compounds. Moreover, photochemical processes in fog and cloudwater can be important sources of secondary pollutants such as nitro-, nitroso-, and chloro-derivatives.     

卤化银微晶体灰雾显影的研究

本文研究了卤化银乳剂经硫、金化学敏化后在D-19b和CD-4为显影剂的显影液中的灰雾显影。实验结果表明,经硫、金敏化的乳剂在D-19b显影液中灰雾显影所产生的密度均比在CD-4显影液中灰雾显影所产生的密度大。在D-19b显影液中一些硫敏化乳剂比金敏化乳剂灰雾显影密度大,但这些硫敏化乳剂在CD-4显影液中的灰雾显影密度却比同一金敏化乳剂的灰雾显影密度小。这些实验结果与硫、金敏化的两种乳剂分别在D-19b和CD-4显影液中灰雾显影动力学研究的结果完全一致。灰雾显影动力学的实验结果指出,硫、金化学敏化在D-19b和CD-4显影液的灰雾显影中对灰雾形成的影响有显著的区别。在D-19b显影液中硫敏化乳剂比金敏化乳剂灰雾显影的速度常数大,活化能低,而在CD-4显影液中则相反,硫敏化乳剂比金敏化乳剂灰雾显影的速度常数小、活化能高。     

大气铅污染对交通警察健康影响的研究

论述了大气铅污染与交通警察健康的关系。世界范围内汽车废气铅污染占人类活动中铅污染的６０％以上,每年约有４０万吨的铅从汽车废气中排出。铅污染不但涉及到空气、土壤、水源,而且还危及到海洋生态平衡。首先受汽车废气铅污染危害最明显的就是交通警察。由于长期吸入高浓度的含铅废气,致使交通警察体内积畜高含量的铅,可导致呼唤系统、神经系统、泌尿生殖系统功能紊乱。铅还胡遗传毒性和致癌作用。降低大气铅污染的重要措施是     

高效集水仿生超浸润材料的研究进展

有效地收集空气中的雾气是缓解缺水危机的一种方法.近年来,可雾水收集的仿生超浸润材料受到了广泛的关注.通过进一步研究雾水收集过程中的液滴动态运输行为,为设计并构筑多功能仿生超浸润材料提供指导.本综述详细地总结了自然界典型的雾水收集现象,并对液滴在不同润湿性材料表面的动态运输行为进行了分类.从单一仿生到多重仿生出发,系统介...     

Micro gas analyzers for environmental and medical applications

In this review, novel microsystems and microdevices to measure gaseous species for environmental analysis and medical diagnostics are described. Miniaturization of analyzers makes field measurements affordable. As well, high sensitivity and good time resolution can be achieved by miniaturization. Some such devices have already been successfully applied to real environmental analyses. Mobile monitoring is available with the use of micro gas analyzers to investigate the natural environment, air pollution and to detect nerve or explosive gases released accidentally or through terrorist activities. Miniature devices are also attractive for medical analyses. Gases produced from the human body reflect gases contained in the blood and certain metabolic conditions. Noninvasive monitoring using miniature devices is available in hospitals and in a patient's home. Many investigations have been conducted using wet and dry chemistry methods for both applications. Instruments employing wet chemistries, which comprise liquid droplets, liquid film, miniature diffusion scrubbers, and microfluidic devices have been studied. Among the instruments using dry methods, miniature samplers, portable gas chromatographs, and microfabricated gas chromatographs have all been investigated. These instruments are expected to usher in a new era of environmental monitoring and will find uses in many medical applications.     

Airborne virus transmission via respiratory droplets: Effects of droplet evaporation and sedimentation

Airborne transmission is considered as an important route for the spread of infectious diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and is primarily determined by the droplet sedimentation time, that is, the time droplets spend in air before reaching the ground. Evaporation increases the sedimentation time by reducing the droplet mass. In fact, small droplets can, depending on their solute content, almost completely evaporate during their descent to the ground and remain airborne as so-called droplet nuclei for a long time. Considering that viruses possibly remain infectious in aerosols for hours, droplet nuclei formation can substantially increase the infectious viral air load. Accordingly, the physical-chemical factors that control droplet evaporation and sedimentation times and play important roles in determining the infection risk from airborne respiratory droplets are reviewed in this article.     

Wetting and self-cleaning properties of artificial superhydrophobic surfaces

The wetting and the self-cleaning properties (the latter is often called the "Lotus-Effect") of three types of superhydrophobic surfaces have been investigated: silicon wafer specimens with different regular arrays of spikes hydrophobized by chemical treatment, replicates of water-repellent leaves of plants, and commercially available metal foils which were additionally hydrophobized by means of a fluorinated agent. Water droplets rolled off easily from those silicon samples which had a microstructure consisting of rather slender spikes with narrow pitches. Such samples could be cleaned almost completely from artificial particulate contaminations by a fog consisting of water droplets (diameter range, 8-20 microm). Some metal foils and some replicates had two levels of roughening. Because of this, a complete removal of all particles was not possible using artificial fog. However, water drops with some amount of kinetic impact energy were able to clean these surfaces perfectly. A substrate where pronounced structures in the range below 5 microm were lacking could not be cleaned by means of fog because this treatment resulted in a continuous water film on the samples.     

Ion-molecule reactions involving methyl isocyanide and methyl cyanide

Ion-molecule reactions involving methyl isocyanide and methyl cyanide have been performed in a new rf-only hexapole collision cell inserted in a large-scale tandem mass spectrometer. Beside protonation processes, N-methyl cyanogen ions (CH(3)N(+)CCN) and 1-methyleneiminium-1- ethylenium ions (CH(2)CN(+)CH(2)) have been produced in high yield and fully characterized by high-energy collisional activation. The unimolecular chemistry of the molecular ions of caffeine (1,3,7-trimethyl xanthine) has been revisited on the basis of these new results.     

Stochastic diffusion interactions and coarsening in a system of droplets growing from a supersaturated gas mixture

In this work we study diffusion interactions among liquid droplets growing in stochastic population by condensation from supersaturated binary gas mixture. During the postnucleation transient regime collective growth of liquid droplets competing for the available water vapor decreases local supersaturation leading to the increase of critical radius and the onset of coarsening process. In coarsening regime the growth of larger droplets is prevailing noticeably broadening the droplet size-distribution function when the condensation process becomes more intensive than the supersaturation yield. Modifications in the kinetic equation are discussed and formulated for a stochastic population of liquid droplets when diffusional interactions among droplets become noteworthy. The kinetic equation for the droplet size-distribution function is solved together with field equations for the mass fraction of disperse liquid phase, mass fraction of water vapor component of moist air, and temperature during diffusion-dominated regime of droplet coarsening. The droplet size and mass distributions are found as functions of the liquid volume fraction, showing considerable broadening of droplet spectra. It is demonstrated that the effect of latent heat of condensation considerably changes coarsening process. The coarsening rate constant, the droplet density (number of droplets per unit volume), the screening length, the mean droplet size, and mass are determined as functions of the temperature, pressure, and liquid volume fraction.     

Fog deposition and accumulation on smooth and textured hydrophobic surfaces

We investigated the deposition and accumulation of droplets on both smooth substrates and substrates textured with square pillars, which were tens of micrometers in size. After being coated with a hydrophobic monolayer, substrates were placed in an air flow with a sedimenting suspension of micrometer-sized water droplets (i.e., fog). We imaged the accumulation of water and measured the evolution of the mean drop size. On smooth substrates, the deposition process was qualitatively similar to condensation, but differences in length scale revealed a transient regime not reported in condensation experiments. Based on previous simulation results, we defined a time-scale characterizing the transition to steady-state behavior. On textured substrates, square pillars promoted spatial ordering of accumulated drops. Furthermore, texture regulated drop growth: first enhancing coalescence when the mean drop size was smaller than the pillar, and then inhibiting coalescence when drops were comparable to the pillar size. This inhibition led to a monodisperse drop regime, in which drop sizes varied by less than 5%. When these monodisperse drops grew sufficiently large, they coalesced and could either remain suspended on pillars (i.e., Cassie-Baxter state) or wet the substrate (i.e., Wenzel state).     

Variations in atmospheric trace element deposition studied by INAA of peat cores from ombrotrophic bogs

In the present work INAA is used to determine as many elements as possible in peat samples from ombrotrophic bogs. Results for depth distribution profiles of some elements of particular interest are presented for selected bogs from areas with highly different input from long-range atmospheric transport of pollutants. In addition to information on air pollution, the data provide knowledge about contribution from natural processes to the airborne supply of some elements, such as in the case of selenium.     

Modeling breakthrough curves of volatile organic compounds on activated carbon fibers

Granular activated carbon (GAC) and more recently activated carbon fibers (ACF) are used for the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in industrial processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the adsorption kinetics of ACF to eliminate VOC from polluted air. This approach is carried out by modeling experimental breakthrough curves with two kinds of models: an equilibrium model and a mass transfer model based on a linear driving force (LDF) in conjunction with the Langmuir equilibrium model. The results show the influence of the intraparticle diffusion on the adsorption kinetics of ACF, in spite of their small fiber diameter. Moreover, external diffusion kinetics is fast because of the influence of the large external surface area of ACF on the VOC mass transfer.     

Identification of levoglucosan and related steroisomers in fog water as a biomass combustion tracer by ESI-MS/MS

A conspicuous fraction of the water soluble organic compounds (WSOC) in fog and fine aerosol samples is composed by monosaccharide anhydrides, such as levoglucosan and its stereoisomers, galactosan and mannosan. Levoglucosan is produced exclusively during wood combustion processes, making it a very useful tracer for plant combustion emissions in the atmosphere. This paper describes a new experimental approach, based on electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS), for the identification of levoglucosan in fog water samples. The analytical method proposed allows to identify the specific sugar anhydrides directly in the liquid phase without the need of any derivatization process.     

Early stages of solidification/stabilization of storm water runoff solid residuals in cement

Summary Results of the experimental investigation of the copper natural sulfide minerals (chalcocite and covellite) oxidation process in the air atmosphere are presented in this paper. Based on data obtained using thermal analysis methods and by construction of PSD diagrams for the Cu-S-O system at different temperatures, mechanisms of the investigated processes were determined. DTA-TG-DTG and RDA methods were used for the investigations given in this paper. Kinetic parameters as well as activation energies of investigated processes were determined using Sharp's method of reduced halftime of reaction.     

Evaporation of sessile droplets of dilute aqueous solutions containing sodium n-alkylates from polymer surfaces: influences of alkyl length and concentration of solute

The evaporation of sessile droplets placed on polymer surfaces was studied by microscopic observation of the changes in shape of aqueous solution droplets in which the alkyl lengths and the initial concentrations of sodium n-alkylates were varied. Although the initial contact angles of the droplets were not significantly different, the evaporation process varied significantly with the alkyl length of the sodium n-alkylate employed. For the sodium dodecanoate (C 12), showing the highest surface activity, the concentration was found to have a significant effect on the evaporation process of the droplets. In the evaporation of water droplets, variations in the three distinct stages were caused by the different concentration of solutes distributed near or at the air/water interface. It is revealed that the concentration of droplet solute near the air/water interface requires not only solvent evaporation but also some affinity of the solute for the interface. The initial C 12 concentration-dependence of the evaporation of C 12 solution droplets is discussed with particular emphasis on the sudden spreading or sudden contraction of the contact area near the end of evaporation. It is suggested that the cluster formation by C 12 molecules at the air/liquid interface during the evaporation causes Marangoni instability in an evaporating droplet, and the clusters are expected to move dynamically, depending on the droplet concentration of C 12, from the droplet center to the contact line and vice versa, showing Marangoni flow along the air/water interface.     

Self-diffusion and collective diffusion of charged colloids studied by dynamic light scattering

A microemulsion of decane droplets stabilized by a nonionic surfactant film is progressively charged by substitution of a nonionic surfactant molecule by a cationic surfactant. We check that the microemulsion droplets remain identical within the explored range of volume fraction (0.02-0.18) and of the number of charges per droplet (0-40). We probe the dynamics of these microemulsions by dynamic light scattering. Despite the similar structures of the uncharged and charged microemulsions, the dynamics are very different. In the neutral microemulsion, the fluctuations of polarization relax, as is well-known, via the collective diffusion of the droplets. In the charged microemulsions, two modes of relaxation are observed. The fast one is ascribed classically to the collective diffusion of the charged droplets coupled to the diffusion of the counterions. The slow one has, to our knowledge, not been observed previously neither in similar microemulsions nor in charged spherical colloids. We show that the slow mode is also diffusive and suggest that its possible origin is the relaxation of local charge fluctuations via the local exchange of droplets bearing different numbers of charges. The diffusion coefficient associated with this mode is then the self-diffusion coefficient of the droplets.     

Éléments chimiques à considérer dans l’aval du cycle nucléaire

Chemical elements to be considered in back end of nuclear cycle. Chemistry dealing with nuclear energy needs to know the chemical behaviour of many elements and radioelements (natural and artificial) under ionising radiation. Their isotopic composition depends on events that arise in nuclear reactors, where stable and radioactive nuclei are produced by nuclear processes. Fission of heavy nuclei gives fission products that are stable or radioactive isotopes of medium mass elements and neutrons. In the conditions prevailing in nuclear reactors, neutrons give isotopes of actinides and activation products, isotopes of various elements. Characteristics of their productions are given. About 40 elements are concerned. To cite this article: R. Guillaumont, C. R. Chimie 7 (2004).