1. Basic Concepts 1.1. Air Pollution 1.2. Criteria and Non-Criteria 1.3. Emissions 2. The Epidemiological Model 3. Toxic Trace Elements from Fossil Fuel Combustion 4. Environmental Behavior of Metal Pollutants 4.1. Atmospheric Aerosol Particles 4.2. Aqueous and Marine Environments 4.3. Accumulation of Heavy Metals in Marine Invertebrates 4.4. Heavy Metal ions in Soils 4.5. Methylation of Heavy ...

The human body has an elaborate system for managing and regulating the amount of key trace metals circulating in blood and stored in cells. Nutrient metals from our diet are incorporated into blood if blood levels are depleted, transported into cells if cellular levels are inadequate, or excreted if blood and cell levels are sufficient or overloaded. When this system fails to function properly,...

The effect of heavy metals and light metals ions on anaerobic digestion of three agricultural biomasses (two row barley, wheat bran and a mixture of 75 % corn kernels and 25 % corncobs) was investigated in this study. The raw materials were characterized from physico-chemical point of view and their heavy metals content (copper, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc) and light metals ions content (po...

The human body has an elaborate system for managing and regulating the amount of key trace metals circulating in blood and stored in cells. Nutrient metals from our diet are incorporated into blood if blood levels are depleted, transported into cells if cellular levels are inadequate, or excreted if blood and cell levels are sufficient or overloaded. When this system fails to function properly,...

Recent studies of plasmon surface wave (PSW) propagation in short-period perfectly conducting gratings have shown formation of stop-band that are not linked to the interaction between two (counter) propagating surface waves. We study the properties of this stop-band in real metals. While for both perfectly conducting and real metals the propagation constant of PSW grows with the groove height, ...

The separation and recovery of rare earth metals from fluorescence material waste was investigated by using solvent extraction with 2-ethylhexyl phosphonic acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester in kerosene. Extraction equilibrium expressions were established for the trivalent metals (La, Ce, Eu, Tb, Y and Al) and divalent metals (Ca, Sr and Ba) for both single and multi components systems. The process s...

In conjunction with John Donat and David Burdige at Old Dominion University, we are studying the influence of metal speciation and metal/metal interactions on the particulate cycling and removal of pollutant metals (Zn and Cd) in the Elizabeth River and Hampton Roads Estuaries, home of the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. We are especially interested in the role of metal uptake by plankton as well as in ...

Transition metals are essential for health, forming integral components of proteins involved in all aspects of biological function. However, in excess these metals are potentially toxic, and to maintain metal homeostasis organisms must tightly coordinate metal acquisition and excretion. The diet is the main source for essential metals, but in aquatic organisms an alternative uptake route is ava...

Hyperaccumulation is an unusual plant response to metaliferous soils. Such soils like those derived from ultramafic rocks, have elevated concentrations of heavy metals, mainly Ni, Cr, Zn and Cd. Most plants growing on these soils exclude metals from their shoots as excessive accumulation of heavy metals is toxic to the majority of plants. However, about 2% of plants growing on metaliferous soil...

Nearly all metals, with the exception of gold and platinum, will corrode in an oxidising environment forming compounds such as oxides, hydroxides and sulphides. The degradation of metals by corrosion is a universal reaction, caused by the simple fact that the oxide of a metal has a much lower energy than the metal itself. Hence there is a strong driving force for the oxidation of metals. For ex...