Contamination
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Contamination Articles
Below is a list of articles that have been published on this topic.
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Chemical Contamination
Chemicals play a major role in everyday life. They are used extensively throughout industrial sectors as well as in private residences. Products from the chemical industry provide the foundations for nearly all manufacturing activities. They are found in the making of a wide variety of products ranging from pesticides to man-made fabric, and even cosmetics.
Chemical Protection
Chemical incidents can be of various types. Some result in the need for minor first aid while others are disastrous accidents, involving the use of hazardous chemicals – which can be toxic, flammable or reactive.
Chromatography - The Science of Separation [Jun 2010]
Chromatography is the science of separation, with the analyte of interest being in a mobile phase, passing through a series of stationary phases. This allows the analyte to be isolated for quantification through a wide variety of techniques. This article looks at how chromatography is used to separate the noble gas krypton from air.
Enviromental Land Remediation
The industrial legacy of the United Kingdom and some current industrial activity has left large areas of land contaminated in the UK and the contamination which has been introduced into the soil poses a risk to the wider environment, human health and natural resources such as groundwater. A very large proportion of our drinking water is pumped form aquifers beneath our feet and this water can be rendered unfit for consumption by trace quantities of some contaminants, some of these contaminants, such a chlorinated hydrocarbons can originate from apparently innocuous places as dry cleaning businesses. Other facilities such as petrol filling stations can leak contaminants into the ground for many years unnoticed.
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Chemical Safety
Emergency safety showers and eye/facewash units provide vital first aid in the event of an industrial accident where workers may be contaminated with potentially dangerous substances. The aim is to start treatment as quickly as possible and therefore reduce the impact of an injury until trained medical help arrives. To do this requires the right equipment, in the right place. Also, it must be easily accessible and maintained in good working order, ready for immediate action. For minor injuries, this first-aid may be the only treatment required but for more serious injuries, effective decontamination can mean the difference between life and death.
Contaminated Soils
Expanding the potential of biomass crop production: reusing brownfield sites and biodegradable wastes.
Soil Sampling of Contaminated Land
Sample selection, handling, transportation and storage. Site investigation and risk assessment have evolved into a major industry over the last two decades, with little legislation or guidance in the earlier years. The errors associated with sampling are now better documented, and any environmental consultant or site contractor needs to be well aware of the large differences which can result from poor site investigation design, and incorrect procedures on site, particularly with respect to sample selection, handling, transportation and storage. The assessment of potential contamination within a site is of critical importance for the future use of the site, predicting the cost of possible remediation, and the re-sale value. One of the main drivers for site investigation is SPOSH - ‘the significant possibility of significant harm’ being caused by the presence of contamination on the site.
Coming Clean
Having worked in the manufacture and sale of disposable coveralls for over fifteen years I have seen many ideas, products and fabrics come and go in a market that has evolved considerably since the early days when, if the stories are true, a bright young technician in a lab somewhere spotted some high density polyethylene fibres bursting from a crack in a pipe and as a result went off and developed, eventually, the first disposable coveralls that became known popularly, despite the best efforts of the marketing men, as 'paper' overalls.
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Contaminated Soils
Across Europe, the management of contaminated soils by landfilling is being replaced by recovery/reuse. This is due amongst other things to the Landfill Directive and its waste treatment and acceptance criteria (WAC; EU Council Decision 2003/33/EC), the limited number of hazardous landfills, and the taxing of landfilling. Site owners and their consultants now pay more attention to the reduction in waste soil volumes and the classification of waste soils to minimise the quantity of waste (some of which may be hazardous), but not always to good effect. Misclassification of waste is still ongoing and methodologies to deal with soil classification are misunderstood. However, soil re-use can be well managed in countries with practical legislation such as the Flanders VLAREBO Decree, which allows re-use as building material. More recent waste guidance documents such as those issued by the UK EA (2004a) allow logical characterisation of soils and assessment for re-use. Nevertheless, the management of land contamination and its contaminated soils, either in the ground, or excavated as a stockpile, are made more difficult by the debate arising from the ‘Van de Walle’ case ECJ (C-1/03).
LCPD Change with the Times
In the scramble to prepare for a new regulatory regime, the owners of large combustion plants should not forget the vital role that good monitoring can play in helping them meet both their production and their emissions targets.
Chemicals In Our Environment
Effective enforcement of chemical and environmental legislation is essential to achieve positive results from the risk-management strategies developed in the European Union. Within the European chemical and environmental sectors there is strong interaction and co-operation between the old and new EU Member States and EU Candidate Countries.
Environmental Laboratory Testing Contaminated land analysis in the 21st century: A European perspective
'In the present advanced state of chemistry, very expensive and complicated instruments are becoming indispensably necessary for ascertaining the analysis ... of bodies with the requisite precision as to quantity and proportion.' Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) in 'Elements of Chemistry in a New Systematic Order.'
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Remediating Contaminated Land
It is estimated that there are 100,000 sites in the UK that are contaminated, 0.2% of the country's land. These need either to be cleaned up so they can be re-used to meet the land shortage and conservation of green areas, or simply to ameliorate the pollution.
Legislative Driven Environmental Analysis
Continually developing analysis contributes to the provision of data
Costs and Benefits of Land Remediation
It is estimated that there are 100,000 sites in the UK that are contaminated, 0.2 % of the country's land. These need to be cleaned-up so they can either be re-used to meet the land shortage and conservation of green areas or simply to ameliorate the pollution.
Sorbent Technology
Whether you are already using sorbents in some format, or whether this application is a new concept to you, it is interesting to see how the simple sorbent tube started out - the work and research involved to create a device many of us now take for granted.
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Dealing With Contaminated Land
The Environment agency estimates that there are some 300,000 hectares of land in the UK affected to by contamination left by industrial activity alone. Contaminated land is a general term used to describe land containing substances that, when present in sufficient concentrations, are likely to cause harm to man, the environment, or materials used in construction. This contamination can manifest in soil, in air, as a waterborne hazard or as a combination of these.
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