Tema 0. Introducción
Tema 0. Introducción
Tema 0. Introducción
TREATMENT.
This course aims at filling the students, educational gaps on technologies for water, air
and soil decontamination, with focus on the application of electrochemical methods to
pollution sensing and abatement. The following topics will be discussed:
electrochemical behavior of pollutants, electrochemical sensing of pollutants,
electrochemical technologies for pollution control, electrochemical disinfection,
commercial applications. Seminaries will be given by industry representatives, both in
the field of technologies manufacturing and water managing.
Examen escrito que consta de 3 PREGUNTAS
1 MUY GENERAL Describe ozonización
1 ESPECÍFICA Describe un equipo
1 MUY ESPECÍFICA Describir los electrodos de referencia
HAY 4 SEMINARIOS DISTINTOS QUE LOS INCLUIRÉ AL FINAL DE LAS
NOTAS DE CLASE.
Water
On the total store of water on this planet earth, the fresh water (la que se puede
beber) is just 0.01%. Fortunately, this freshwater supply is continually
replenished (reabastecida) by the precipitation of water vapor from the
atmosphere as rain or snow. The global water cycle is formed by precipitation,
evaporation and vapor transport.
Some pollutants enter the water cycle by way of the atmosphere. Best-known
examples of this transport route include the acid generation from NOx and SOx
emissions. An indirect effect of acid deposition is positive ion leaching out of
the soil, that has been implicated in several cases of fish-kill in rivers and lakes.
Ammonia from the atmosphere can also enter the groundwater through the soil.
Microbial action converts it into soluble nitrates. Another deleterious effect of
human activity is the introduction of large amount of nutrients, especially
phosphates, into the surface water reservoirs. This leads to excessive growth of
algae. When algae die, their microbial degradation consumes most of the
dissolved dioxygen in the water, vastly reducing the water’s capacity to sustain
life. This process is called eutrophication.
Soil
Soil receives large quantities of water products each year. Much of the Sox and
NOx emissions end up in the soil as sulfates and nitrates, respectively. Elevates
levels of heavy metals are found in the soil near industrial and mining facilities.
The soil receives enormous quantities of pesticides as an inevitable result of the
application to crops. The degradation and eventual fate of these chemicals in soil
largely determine their ultimate environmental impact.
The three primary ways in which chemicals (including pesticides) are
decomposed in soil are: BIODEGRADATION, CHEMICAL DEGRADATION
and PHOTOCHEMICAL REACTIONS (in surface soil reactions). Microbial
degradations, however, remains the predominant decomposition pathway.
The soil constitutes an integral part of the human exposure pathway whereby the
pollutant ultimately enters the food chain. This is because most lipophilic
compounds reside mainly in the soil.
Biota
3. CLASSES OF POLLUTANTS
ORGANICS
Pesticides.
Organic solvents
The BTEX family (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene,xylene) are classified as
priority pollutants. These monocycle aromatics are concern in wastewater, and
particularly in sources of drinking water, because they are generally
nonbiodegradable. (They are highly water soluble and volatile compare to their
aliphatic counterparts). They are really stable and difficult to oxidize.
The partition rule tells us how much is of those is spread in the surrounding
ambient.
Surfactants
Mostly present in the water and soil.
Industrial organics
PCBs behave as antioxidant which explains why are so persistent when released
into the environment.
Suspended solids
Biodegradable organics
High-priority pollutants (These are selected based on their known or suspected
behaviour as carcinogens, mutagens, or toxicity).
Refractory organics: these compounds are not biodegradable.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs): These include organic compounds with
boiling points below that of water or vapor pressures greater than 1 mm Hg at
25ºC or both. When transferred to the vapor phase, their mobility increases
greatly and can lead to increased health risks or the formation of photochemical
oxidants.
Malodorous compounds: some organic compounds, volatile or otherwise, may
lead to a foul smell (mal olor) so considered because of social impact.
We can group inorganic pollutants into several categories including the following:
INORGANICS
Metals: the toxicity depends on the oxidation state and the coordination on the
metals.
The effects of metals and their compounds on humans, animals, and plans are
quite varied. Whereas some are essential nutrients, others are very toxic due to
their interactions with life processes (such as enzymatic activity). Especially
problematic are those capable of BIOACCUMULATION.
Metalloids: for example, arsenic and selenium. Dissolved arsenic can occur in
natural waters in both inorganic and organic forms.
Anions
Microorganisms.
In most cases, the methods are directed toward specific environmental matrices, for
example industrial wastewater. Clearly, each type of environmental medium discussed
previously – air, water, soil, and biota – requires its own set of sample acquisition,
storage, and pre-treatment procedures.
There are systematic errors. When this happens, we must obtain the values that are true.
OBJECTIVE: Find the value that is more similar to the real one.
In our studies we can have two types of errors: SYSTEMATIC and RANDOM errors.
Random errors are produced randomly. No nos podemos librar de él.
El segundo error que mencionamos es el SYSTEMATIC error, también llamado sesgo.
Este se debe a un error en el diseño o en el análisis del estudio, que produce una
estimación incorrecta o no válida del efecto que estamos estudiando.
Systematic errors are consistently in the same direction. In contrast, random errors
produce different values in random directions.
RANDOM ERROR has high accuracy and low precision. Instead systematic errors are
characterized by a high precision and low accuracy (Compromete la validez de los
resultados).
Considering chemical methods, the most important are volumetric and gravimetric
analysis. Those analyses allow us to determine the amount of a constituent present in a
mixture of constituents. These methods can be used to determine a pollutant in a given
sample.
The following parameters will allow us to analyse our sample:
Acidity of water:
pH=4.5 (Methyl orange: is a pH indicator frequently used in titration because of
its clear and distinct colour variance at different pH values. It shows red colour
in acidic medium and yellow colour in basic medium.
Alkalinity: capacity of water to resist changes in pH that would make the water
more acidic.
−¿+2 H + ¿→Mn ¿
¿
MnO 2 ( s )+ 2 I
Ahora la muestra de agua está lista para ser titulada con tiosulfato de sodio. En
esta reacción el ion tiosulfato se añade cuantitativamente para convertir el I2
nuevamente en I-. Recuerde que la cantidad de I2 presente en esta etapa del
procedimiento está directamente relacionada a la cantidad de oxígeno O 2
presente en la muestra original. Esta reacción se representa con la expresión:
−¿ ¿
2−¿+2 I ¿
I 2+ 2 S2 O2−¿→ S O 4 6 ¿
3
Adsorption Spectrophotometry
Many compounds absorb ultraviolet (UV) or visible (Vis) light. The amount of
radiation absorbed may be measured in the following way:
The absorbance can be easily calculated from percentage transmittance data:
A=log ( 100
%T )
So, if all the light passes through a solution without any absorption, then
absorbance is zero, and percent transmittance is 100%. If all the light is
absorbed, then percent transmittance is zero, and absorptions is infinite.
Beer’s Law A=a·b·c
Where:
a= is the absorptivity which depends on the wavelength of the substance.
b is the path length of the sample
c is the concentration of the compound in solution
Atomic adsorption
It’s commonly used to analyse metals.
CHROMATOGRAPHY
Ion Chromatography
It’s a specific case of liquid chromatography. Here you can distinguish ions.
(Phosphates from phosphites … Arsenates from arsenites).
Example:
ASO43- ASO33-
You have a 50 ratio You can have possible fragments corresponding to this
ratio (NOT JUST ONE).
For each line spectrum will give you different fragments.
First, you take a sample of water (which MUST BE DILUTED). Then this
sample is in INCUBATION for 48 hours in a NUTRIENT BROTH at 35ºC. (It
looks like a cotton disk).
After some time, you see there are some spots which you can count one by one:
You counted 20 spots in 20 mm diluted water. Now you need to redo all the
calculations by the other way around.
Imagine they say it’s diluted 1/10 You take 2 mm and then you put then in
the oven for 48 hours at 35 ºC finding those spots. You can count them with
optical lenses:
As a result: 20 cfu (colony-forming units) in 2 mm of water You can go back
to the initial ratio since the ratio is 1/10.
WAYS of SAMPLING:
- Grab sampling: the analysis refers to water in that specific time in that
specific place. (Sample taken one time in one place).
Step 2: OXIDATION
This step includes the oxidation of all the carbon in the remaining carbon (which
now is organic) to CO2.
Modern TOC analyzers perform this oxidation in several processes:
Combustion, photo-oxidation and many different kinds of oxidation processes.
The table that is below, lists current methods for the treatment or organic,
inorganic, and microbiological pollutants in air, water, and soil.