As semiconductor devices continue to be highly integrated and their geometries also continue to shrink, not only particulate and metallic contamination but also trace organic contamination adsorbed on the surface of silicon wafers has an increasingly detrimental impact on the performance and yield of semiconductor devices [1]. Airborne organic volatiles leads to unintentional hydrophobization (...

A method is described for the determination of total arsenic by hydride generation-atomic absorption spectrophotometry using a mixed acid as a pretreatment. Hydride generation is done by the flow-injection method. The authors investigated in detail the temperature and time of decomposition using inorganic, organic arsenic and environmental standard samples, pretreated with nitric-perchloric-sul...

Selenium (Se) is an essential trace mineral required for growth, development, immune function, and metabolism. Selenium exerts its biological effects as an integral component of selenoproteins (SePs). Deficiency or low Se status leads to marked changes in many biochemical pathways and a range of pathologies and disorders which are associated with SeP function. Animals, and presumably humans, ar...

Suspended sediment has long been recognized as an important contaminant affecting water resources. Besides its direct role in determining water clarity, bridge scour and reservoir storage, sediment serves as a vehicle for the transport of many binding contaminants, including nutrients, trace metals, semivolatile organic compounds, and numerous pesticides (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 20...

This study investigated the impact of salinity build-up on the performance of membrane bioreactor (MBR), specifically in terms of the removal and fate of trace organic chemicals (TrOCs), nutrient removal, and biomass characteristics. Stepwise increase of the influent salinity, simulating salinity build-up in high retention MBRs, adversely affected the metabolic activity in the bioreactor, there...

Many low oxidation state transition metal (carbonyl) clusters are salts and are highly soluble in ionic liquids. Since many are also effective catalysts/precatalysts for hydrogenation reactions, we have conducted a catalytic study of these compounds in ionic liquids and found that the activity of certain clusters to hydrogenate alkene substrates, when immobilised in ionic liquids, is up to 3.6-...