Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Only in the late 1970’s did the industrialized countries begin to comprehend the enormity of the damage brought about by pollution of the geosphere. Although the harm caused by the use of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides was already noted by Rachel Carson in her 1962 seminal book ‘Silent Spring’, the first major institutional move to stop pollution and reclaim polluted land was in 1978, when the Love Canal neighborhood was evacuated and the U.S. Superfund program initiated.

Over the past few decades, scientists around the world have revealed the sinister impacts that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) could inflect on man and his environment.

Sorption of organic contaminants to natural particles plays a fundamental role in their biological availability. This paper considers the influence of sorption thermodynamics and kinetics on contaminant bioavailability, with emphasis on the author’s prior work.

In the first part of this paper an overview is provided of the various phenomena that anthropogenic organic pollutants (AOPs) of various nature and origin are subjected in soil and of the specific role exerted by soil humic substances (HS) in these processes.

Ecotoxicological effects of metals in aquatic and terrestrial environments often do not correlate well to the total concentration of metal. Environmental quality criteria and standards based on total concentration of a metal may over or under predict actual effects.

Fish living in polluted waters tend to accumulate heavy metals in their tissues. Generally, accumulation depends on metal concentration, time of exposure, way of metal uptake, environmental conditions (water temperature, pH, hardness, salinity), and intrinsic factors (fish age, feeding habits). Various metals show different affinity to fish tissues. Most of them accumulate mainly in liver, kidney and gills. Fish muscles, comparing to the other tissues, usually contain the lowest levels of metals. Metal distribution in various organs is time-related. Accumulation of metals in various organs of fish may cause structural lesions and functional disturbances.

A review is proposed on various types of sensoristic approaches to biological damage and risk assessment. The traditional analytical approach to toxicity evaluation of a matrix is replaced by a sensor based one. Some sensor models are so presented able to offer an opportune solution to the problem to be solved. Some sensors are able to detect risky and dangerous situations and to evaluate them by measuring integral indexes such as total organic carbon, ecopermanence, total radical concentration, integral toxicity. Finally also a sensor based on human tissue is presented as example of a new generation biosensor.

The protection of water resources and the secure delivery of clean water to consumers are important tasks for humans in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to have novel analytical systems to control water quality. Here we give a review on the performance of the AWACSS (Automated Water Analyser Computer Supported System) biosensor and describe the results obtained during a field test and for a validation with drinking water.

At the heart of every biosensor is a biological entity, the purpose of which is to react with the target analyte(s) and generate a readily quantifiable signal. Traditional biosensors are based on the unique specificity of enzymes to their substrates, antibodies to antigens or that of nucleic acids to their complementary sequences.

The level of knowledge concerning the state of the environment increases continually. Selected examples of activities of the Department of Analytical Chemistry, Chemical Faculty, Gda sk University of Technology (Gda sk, Poland) are presented.