Phase equilibrium measurements in systems of CO2 and fish oil fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) at 70 degrees C are presented. Three different mixtures were investigated, a natural FAEE mixture from the oil of the sand eel (Ammodytes sp.), a urea fractionated mixture prepared from the natural FAEE mixture, and a concentrate of omega 3 FAEEs. The measurements were performed in a static type apparatus making it possible to sample both the vapor and liquid phases. The results presented include solubilities and equilibrium ratios. The experimental results are used to evaluate a process for the recovery of C20:5 omega 3 (EPA) and C22:6 omega 3 (DHA) at 70 degrees C.

Induction of ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) activity and porphyrin accumulation shows different structure-activity relationships for different polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-pdioxin (TCDD). Interactions between the two responses can strongly influence the induction and activity of EROD. The results support the conclusion that there are non-additive interactions between nondioxin-like PCBs and dioxin-like compounds. The interaction between EROD activity and the porphyrin biosynthesis makes the prerequisite of additivity in the toxic equivalency factor concept for environmental mixtures highly spurious. Inhibition of EROD activity caused by nondioxin-like compounds could have a significant impact on the value of EROD activity as a biomarker in the present methods of risk assessment for these compounds.

Material Flow Analysis (MFA) has become an important instrument in environmental science and pollution research. In this paper, we look at the MFA problem as a particularly structured system identification problem. Special emphasis is given to the linear, static case, where we describe a procedure for reconciliating the flow measurements and for estimating the unmeasured flows and the transfer coefficients by taking into account a priori restrictions such as balance equations.

Subsequent to irradiation with a xenon lamp simulating sunlight, fluoroquinolone carboxylic acids in aqueous solution form polar pyridone dicarboxylic and tricarboxylic acids. After liquid/liquid partition with chloroform/water these substances can be isolated by ion exchange chromatography of the aqueous phase. They can be regarded as intermediate compounds on the route to a complete photomineralization. The structural elucidation is performed by such mass spectroscopic methods as MS, GC/MS and HPLC/MS, whereby HPLC/MS shows the highest reliability. Additionally¹H- and¹³C-NMR measurements confirm the structure of the main polar degradation product.

Inconsistent data presently available on the platinum emission rate of cars in Germany equipped with catalytic converters are evaluated. Automobile sources of Pt other than autocatalysts are quantified and found to be 1–6 orders of magnitudes lower than the Pt emissions attributed to catalytic converters. A transfer of emission rates derived from test stand experiments to more realistic street conditions reaches 0.8 μg Pt/km. In this manner, data from test stand experiments and from environmental investigations meet in the range of 0.5–0.8 μg Pt/km.

The measurement and induction of mixed function oxyigenases (MFOs) of limnetic gastropods were investigated to estimate their suitability as biomarkers. A determination of MFO activities was performed through the measurement of ethoxyresorufin-O-dealkylase (EROD), pentoxy-(PROD) and benzoxyresorufin-O-dealkylase-activity (BROD). Optimal measuring conditions of these activities were investigated in preparations of the digestive gland of 4 species of limnetic gastropods. Results indicate that MFO-activity inhibiting substances are accumulating in the microsomal pellet, the fraction commonly used for the measurement of MFO-activities. Therefore, the fraction used for induction studies was the postmitochondrial supernatant (PMS). EROD, PROD, and BROD activity ofPlanorbis planorbis andPlanorbis carinatus were measured after a treatment with Aroclor 1254 for 1–17 days. Maximal induction of EROD and PROD were 6 and 10 times the value in the control group ofP. carinatus, respectively induction inP. planorbis was lower. BROD-activity could not been measured inP. planorbis. InP. carinatus, BROD-activity increased to a maximum of 2 times after traetment with Aroclor 1254. The level of induction of EROD-activity is comparable to results described in analog studies with fish.

The internal barrier of rotation (Erot) was calculated for all 209 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) by using a semi-empirical method, viz. the Austin Model 1 (AMI) Hamiltonian. The difference in total energy between a forced planar state and an optimised twisted structure was defined as Erot. The Erot values were in the range of 8.33 to 483 kj/mol, and were significantly influenced by the number of chlorine atoms inortho position. An additional structural characteristic of the PCBs influencing Erot ofortho substituted congeners was substitution by chlorine atoms in vicinalmeta positions, which is assumed to prevent outward bending ofortho substituents. This so-called buttressing effect contributed with 4 to 31 kj/mol per added chlorine atom. In conclusion, the internal barrier of rotation, calculated for all 209 PCBs, provides an important structure dependent physico-chemical parameter for multivariate modelling of future quantitative structure-activity and structure-property relationships (QSARs/QSPRs).

Substituted phenols, anilines, pyridines and mononitrobenzenes can be classified as polar narcotics. These chemicals differ from non-polar narcotic compounds not only in their toxic potency (normalized by log Kₒw), but also in their Fish Acute Toxicity Syndrome profiles, together suggesting a different mode of action.For 97 polar narcotics, which are not ionized under physiological conditions, 11 physico-chemical and quantum-chemical descriptors were calculated. Using principal component analysis, 91 % of the total variance in this descriptor space could be explained by three principal components which were subsequently used as factors in a statistical design. Eleven compounds were selected based on a two-level full factorial design including three compounds near the center of the chemical domain (a 2³+3 design).QSARs were developed for both the design set and the whole set of 63 polar narcotics for which guppy and/or fathead minnow data were available in the literature. Both QSARs, based on partial least squares regression (3 latent variables), resulted in good models (R²=0.96 and Q²=0.82; R²=0.86 and Q²=0.83 respectively) and provided similar pseudo-regression coefficients. In addition, the model based on the design chemicals was able to predict the toxicity of the 63 compounds (R² =0.85).Models show that acute fish toxicity is determined by hydrophobicity, HOMO-LUMO energy gap and hydrogen-bond acceptor capacity.

A few case studies will be presented involving both radioactive and chemical pollution at small, medium, and large space-time scales. Reported are recent advances in the field of environmental pollution involving the use of fractals and multifractals. The mathematical tools proposed here may offer new perspectives for investigating many of the problems of nonlinear variability which commonly arise when dealing with pollutants, such as the presence of outliers and the sparseness of the sampling networks. They may also lead to a simplification of the models adopted for studying natural phenomena, thanks to a scaling approach. Finally, they may provide parameters whose values are directly related to the nonlinear dynamics involved in the pollutant distribution in the environment which, in turn, may be relevant for computer simulation and epidemiological or risk assessment purposes.

Daily total ozone observations made during 1985–1993 by both the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) flown on the Satellite Nimbus-7 and the Dobson Spectrophotometer have been used in order to investigate the fluctuations of the daily broad-band and spectral solar ultraviolet radiation reaching the ground. This investigation has been performed by employing a recently developed parametric algorithm for the estimation of the spectral and broad-band solar ultraviolet radiation which takes the total ozone variations into consideration. Total ozone reductions during the summertime from 1985 to 1993 over Athens, Greece (37.6° N, 23.4° E), cause an increase in the ultraviolet irradiance which reaches the ground of 0.54 %, 0.98 %, 2.60 % and 0.79 % per decade for the months of July at 300 nm, 312 nm, 320 nm and UVB (280-320 nm), respectively.