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.

The application of the SRK equation of state for the prediction of the phase behaviour of mixtures of vegetable oils with near critical solvents is studied. The use of binary interaction parameters in the combinatorial rules for both the co-volume and the energy parameter is discussed. Two different sets of binary interaction parameters are needed in order to correlate the vapor-liquid and liquid-liquid equilibria. This indicates a serious limitation of van der Waals type of equations of state for modeling the phase equilibria of this type of systems.

Supercritical CO2 extraction of oleoresin from portuguese rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) was carried out with a flow apparatus at temperatures of 35 and 40 degrees C and pressures of 100, 125 and 200 bar. The highest fraction of volatile compounds (oil) in the oleoresin was obtained at 100 bar and 40 degrees C. An unsteady mathematical model was able to give good representation of the supercritical extraction curves and a mass transfer coefficient was determined using the successive quadratic programming method. Values of this coefficient ranged between 4.49 and 15.07 kg/m3s and the shift to a diffusion-controlled regime occurred when 44% of the total oil was extracted.

During the last decade use of supercritical fluids in environmental applications have increased due to their unique properties. Technologies have already been developed for extraction of organic compounds from aqueous and solid environmental matrices and research on extraction of metals is in progress. In most applications, supercritical carbon dioxide is the solvent of choice because it is environmentally benign, safe, and abundant at a low cost. Recent research focus is on use of supercritical fluids as separation and reaction media. Especially as the reaction media, supercritical fluids offer properties that may significantly affect reaction rates and selectivities. The most important property is the control of solvency power through density. This aspect may be used to eliminate side reactions, exceed thermodynamic yield limitations, or control polymer chain lengths and molecular weight distributions. In the separations area, supercritical fluids can be exploited for adsorptive separations of structurally very similar compounds and for selective extraction of thermally labile compounds from natural products.

The extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) with supercritical carbon dioxide from contaminated soils can be improved by the use of entrainer. In comparison to alcohols or alkanes, water yields good results as moisture of the soil due to its low solubility in the supercritical fluid. Thus, water is only slowly driven out of the soil and can therefore influence the adsorption of the contaminants on the soil particles even at longer extraction times. The agglomeration of soil with elevated water content results in an optimum humidity for the extraction of contaminated soil in the range of 8 - 15%.

“Freely-dissolved” aqueous concentrations of 9 trichlorothrough heptachlorobiphenyls are reported, alongside those in sediments and fish from the R. Severn. For most congeners, BSAFs and lipid-normalised BAFs for pike exceed those for eels. Whilst R. Severn BSAFs are comparable with those for L. Ontario trout and New Bedford Harbour flounder, R. Severn BAFs are 1–2 orders of magnitude lower. This discrepancy may be due to inter-species variability, as well as inter-laboratory differences between operational definitions of “freely-dissolved” aqueous PCB, underlining that the same operational definition must be employed if R. Severn BAFs are extrapolated elsewhere. For eels, correlation of Log Kᵒʷ with Log BAF is better (R² = 0.66) than with BSAF (R² = 0.13), whilst similar correlation coefficients (R² = 0.81 and 0.82) were observed for pike. When Log Kᵒʷ is plotted against BSAF and Log BAF for both species combined, better correlation is observed for Log BAF (R² = 0.65), than BSAF (R² = 0.36). For both species combined, the observed relationship between Log BAF and Log Kᵒʷ for trichloro-through heptachlorobiphenyls is: Log BAF = 0.96 * Log Kᵒʷ −0.24.

Environmental properties of organic matter contained halogen and sulfur were studied in sediments of bleached kraft pulp mill effluent (BKME) recipient lakes and 2 m³ outdoor enclosures (mesocosms). The BKME contributed to 1% (v/v) of the total water flow in the lake downstream of the pulp mill where the sediments contained 1.7 to 4 mg of tetrahydrofuran extractable organic halogen (EOX-Cl) and 0.6 to 0.8 mg of tetrahydrofuran extractable organic sulfur (EOS-S) g⁻¹ of organic matter. Upstream sediment contained 0.03 mg of EOXCl and 0.7 mg of EOS-S g⁻¹ of organic matter. EOX was a better indicator for the influence of BKME in the recipient sediment than EOS. The polarity of BKME contained EOX corresponded to log Kᵒʷ of < 1, and that of the downstream sediment contained EOX to > 4.5. HP-SEC analysis of the molecular weight distribution (MWD) of the EOX showed a peak between 300 to 600 g mol⁻¹ for the BKME and between 1000 to 2000 g mol⁻¹ for the downstream sediment. The MWD of the BKME contained EOS peaked at 300 to 1000 g mol⁻¹, and that of the downstream sediment contained EOS at 1000 to 5000 g mol⁻¹. These results indicate that BKME contained organic halogen and sulfur undergo major structural transformations when incorporated into sediment. The biota-to-sediment accumulation factor (BSAF) of EOX from sediments formed downstream of the mill and in the mesocosms to the lipids ofLumbriculus variegatus was 0.4 to 0.7. This is of a similar order of magnitude to the BSAF reported for 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzop-dioxin and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran.