BACKGROUND Whether fetal neurodevelopment is disrupted by traffic-related air pollution is uncertain. Animal studies suggest that chemical and non-chemical stressors interact to impact neurodevelopment, and that this association is further modified by sex. OBJECTIVES To examine associations between prenatal traffic-related black carbon exposure, prenatal stress, and sex with children's memory...

Persistent organic pollutants, POPs (e.g., polychlorinated biphenyls) can seriously and deleteriously affect environmental quality and human health. These organic pollutants are exhibiting high affinities to solid phases and thus, quickly end up in sediments. To better understand the role of carbonaceous materials in the transport and distributions of POPs in terrestrial and near-shore environm...

Elemental-, equivalent black- and refractory black-carbon are terms that have been defined in order to dissect the more general term, black carbon, into its component parts related to its specific chemical and optical properties and its impact on climate and health. Recent publications have attempted to clarify the meaning of these terms with respect to their environmental impact, particularly ...

In this research, the production possibility of TiC-Al2O3 nanocomposite, as a useful ceramic from commercially pure TiO2, aluminum powder and carbon black has been investigated. Routile (TiO2) with carbon black and aluminum were placed in a high energy ball mill and sampled during different milling times. Then, the activated powders were synthesized at different temperatures in an atmosphere co...

The efficiency of using a composite of carbon black and sodium bentonite in treating drinking water contaminated with lead and copper ions was analysed. The effects of pH, contact time, concentration and adsorbent dosage using an adsorbent composite of 20 % sodium bentonite and 80 % carbon black were studied. The adsorption data was tested with respect to Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin iso...

The effects of carbon blacks on vulcanization and mechanical properties of filled ethylene-propylene-diene rubber (EPDM) are investigated, by comparing with five types of rubber-grade carbon blacks. Curing kinetics is studied by rheometer and the results indicate that the curing characteristics are influenced by combination of surface area of carbon black and sulphur content on the filler surfa...

In the editorial accompanying our article reporting higher alveolar macrophage carbon in adults who cycled to work in London, ACKERMANN-LIEBRICH [1] speculated that ‘‘very short, high peaks of exposure contribute more to total load of inhaled pollutants and, thus, we ought to control not only the mean pollutant levels but avoid higher peaks.’’ In our initial analyses, we found no association be...

Nanotoxicological research has shown toxicity of nanomaterials to be inversely related to particle size. However, the contribution of agglomeration to the toxicity of nanomaterials has not been sufficiently studied, although it is known that agglomeration is associated with increased nanomaterial size. In this study, we prepared aerosols of nano-sized carbon black by 2 different ways to verify ...