Environmental Pollutants

The principal emphasis of the Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics is on biological problems. Techniques for measuring are considered very necessary but the development of them is usual­ ly left to someone else. Therefore it is a little unusual for the department to sponsor a conference which is devoted mostly to methodology. Environmental Pollution is a very popular topic now, and one notices that there are a number of scientific conferences devoted to the topic. Furthermore, part of every conference is devoted to measurements of pollutants. So the question becomes one of what should be different about our conference. To start with there are two unique features here: The first is the limited attendance which should provide more meaningful discussion; the second is the availability to the world of all the information in book form after the conference. We gave considerable thought to the contents of the conference which would take advantage of the unique features. Therefore, we decided to look to the future and present material here that is not in routine use. The search for pollutants has just begun, and their presence cannot be established without some means of detection. Many substances are not known to be toxic be­ cause no one has studied them. The necessary information can only be obtained if techniques for detection and measurement are avail­ able.

Contenu

Welcoming Remarks.- Welcome from the Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics.- Session I: Specification of Analytical Problems.- Air Pollutant Monitoring: Or How to Improve on an Ouija Board.- The Strategy for Cleaning Up Our Waters.- European Aspects of Environmental Research and Legislation.- The Whole Animal as an Assay System.- Session II: More Familiar Principles.- Analysis of Atmospheric Pollutants of Possible Importance in Human Carcinogenesis.- Ion-Selective Electrodes.- Ultratrace Metals Analysis by Electrothermal Atomization Atomic Absorption - Present Technology and Potential Developments.- Tanker Tragedies: Identifying the Source and Determining the Fate of Petroleum in the Marine Environment.- Water Pollution Studies Using Raman Spectroscopy.- Session III: Methods for Field Use.- Passive Sampling of Ambient and Work Place Atmospheres by Means of Gas Permeation.- The Continuous Measurement of Sulfur-Containing Aerosols by Flame Photometry: A Laboratory Study.- Tunable Diode Laser Detection of Air Pollutants.- An Evaluation of Lasers for Ambient Air Pollution Measurement.- Session IV: High Spatial Resolution Microprobe Methods.- Methods of Microprobe Analysis.- Analytical Transmission Electron Microscopy and its Application in Environmental Science.- Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy: A New Microanalytical Tecnique?.- Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry for Particulate Analysis.- Surface Chemical Analysis of Particles by Auger Electron Spectroscopy and ESCA.- Session V: Physical Analytical Methods.- Size Measurement of Airborne Particulates by Time-of-Flight Spectroscopy.- Continuous Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Environmental Pollutants Using Surface Ionization.- Observation of the Raman Effect from Small Single Particles: Its Use in the Chemical Identification of Airborne Particulates.- X-Ray Analysis of Environmental Pollutants.- Modern Techniques of Activation Analysis for the Measurement of Environmental Trace Metals.- Participants.