The civilian, commercial, and defense sectors of most advanced industrialized nations are faced with a tremendous set of environmental problems related to the remediation of hazardous wastes, contaminated groundwaters, and the control of toxic air contaminants. For example, the slow pace of hazardous waste remediation at military installations around the world is causing a serious delay in conversion of many of these facilities to civilian uses. Over the last 10 years problems related to hazardous waste remediation have emerged as a high national and international priority.

Environmental Applications of Semiconductor Photocatalysis

The increasing worldwide contamination of freshwater systems with thousands of industrial and natural chemical compounds is one of the key environmental problems facing humanity. Although most of these compounds are present at low concentrations, many of them raise considerable toxicological concerns, particularly when present as components of complex mixtures. Here we review three scientific challenges in addressing water-quality problems caused by such micropollutants. First, tools to assess the impact of these pollutants on aquatic life and human health must be further developed and refined. Second, cost-effective and appropriate remediation and water-treatment technologies must be explored and implemented. Third, usage and disposal strategies, coupled with the search for environmentally more benign products and processes, should aim to minimize introduction of critical pollutants into the aquatic environment.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/313/5790/1072.full.pdf

The Challenge of Micropollutants in Aquatic Systems

https://cyberleninka.org/article/n/567486.pdf

A review on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Source, environmental impact, effect on human health and remediation

A review on emerging contaminants in wastewaters and the environment: current knowledge, understudied areas and recommendations for future monitoring.

Plastic resin pellets (small granules 0.1−0.5 centimeters in diameter) are widely distributed in the ocean all over the world. They are an industrial raw material for the plastic industry and are unintentionally released to the environment both during manufacturing and transport. They are sometimes ingested by seabirds and other marine organisms, and their adverse effects on organisms are a concern. In the present study, PCBs, DDE, and nonylphenols (NP) were detected in polypropylene (PP) resin pellets collected from four Japanese coasts. Concentrations of PCBs (4−117 ng/g), DDE (0.16−3.1 ng/g), and NP (0.13−16 μg/g) varied among the sampling sites. These concentrations were comparable to those for suspended particles and bottom sediments collected from the same area as the pellets. Field adsorption experiments using PP virgin pellets demonstrated significant and steady increase in PCBs and DDE concentrations throughout the six-day experiment, indicating that the source of PCBs and DDE is ambient seawater...

Plastic Resin Pellets as a Transport Medium for Toxic Chemicals in the Marine Environment

Preface. Part I: Introduction. 1. General Topic and Overview. 2. An Introduction to Environmental Organic Chemicals. Part II: Equilibrium Partitioning Between Gaseous, Liquid, and Solid Phases. 3. Partitioning: Molecular Interactions and Thermodynamics. 4. Vapor Pressure. 5. Activity Coefficient and Solubility in Water. 6. Air-Organic Solvent and Air-Water Partitioning. 7. Organic Liquid-Water Partitioning. 8. Organic Acids and Bases: Acidity Constant and Partitioning Behavior. 9. Sorption I: General Introduction and Sorption Processes Involving Organic Matter. 10. Sorption II: Partitioning to Living Media - Bioaccumulation and Baseline Toxicity. 11. Sorption III: Sorption Processes Involving Inorganic Surfaces. Part III: Transformation Processes. 12. Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Transformation Reactions. 13. Chemical Transformations I: Hydrolysis and Reactions Involving Other Nucleophilic Species. 14. Chemical Transformations II: Redox Reactions. 15. Direct Photolysis. 16. Indirect Photolysis: Reactions with Photooxidants in Natural Waters and in the Atmosphere. 17. Biological Transformations. Part IV: Modeling Tools: Transport and Reaction. 18. Transport by Random Motion. 19. Transport Through Boundaries. 20. Air-Water Exchange. 21. Box Models. 22. Models in Space and Time. Part V: Environmental Systems and Case Studies. 23. Ponds, Lakes, and Oceans. 24. Rivers. 25. Groundwater. Appendix. Bibliography. Index (Subject Index, Compound Index, List of Illustrative Examples).

Environmental organic chemistry

This book builds an understanding of what systems are and how they can be described mathematically. In the context of natural science, this knowledge is of great importance. The intended audience are students in applied sciences such as earth and environmental science, geoecology, environmental chemistry and forestry. The focus is on the methods of modeling, with the aim to let readers develop models of their own as well as analyze the properties of models they encounter. Numerous practical examples from the environmental sciences illustrate the concepts, and exercises accompany each chapter. The book is written so as to be easily understandable and includes humorous cartoons. There is no derivation of mathematical formulas or technical description of modeling software. It does, however, require an understanding of calculus for the reader to apply the mathematical methods it introduces.

Introduction to Systems Analysis

In the remaining part of the book, we will exclusively deal with dynamic models As we already noted in the introduction, one of the principal characteristics of natural systems is that they are not static

Chapter 4 Linear Models with One Variable

Introduction to Systems Analysis: Mathematically Modeling Natural Systems

In Sect. 2.4 we briefly introduced systems that change stepwise at certain times rather than continuously.

Dieter M. Imboden

Papers

Environmental organic chemistry

Introduction to Systems Analysis

Chapter 4 Linear Models with One Variable

Introduction to Systems Analysis: Mathematically Modeling Natural Systems

Chapter 7 Time-Discrete Models