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Water and Sustainable Development Opportunities for the Chemical Sciences: A Workshop Report to the Chemical Sciences Roundtable (2004) / Chapter Skim
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5 Organic Contaminants in the Environment: Challenges for the Water/Environmental Engineering Commmunity
Pages 40-46

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From page 40...
... Yet the ability to relate sediment concentrations to water quality, biological availability, and toxicological effects is hindered by inadequate understanding of the binding and release of the contaminants in sediment. The inherent heterogeneity of sediment makes it difficult to describe in terms of bulk sediment physicochemical parameters such as total organic carbon content, surface area, and particle size distribution.
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From page 41...
... Absorption Efficiency Tests Activated carbon is used in water treatment, but never before was it thought that adding activated carbon to sediments would achieve any benefit. The effect of activated carbon on sequestration of organic contaminants in sediments was tested here using benthic organisms indigenous to the San Francisco Bay (Figure 5.3~.
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From page 42...
... In a set of complementary tests, particles with varying amounts of particulate organic carbon were spiked with either benzoLaipyrene or tetrachloro-PCB and then fed to clams (Figure 5.4~. These were short feeding studies in which clams were fed individual particles and then watched to see what was ingested and where the PCB went.
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From page 43...
... When partitioning studies were done, in looking at what PAHs will be solubilized in water when in contact with some of that material, the lampblack residuals seem to fall into two distinct levels, one high and one low. This is quite interesting because these samples at the low level will pass the California Environmental Protection 43 Agency risk base screening levels for drinking water sources, while the higher level will not.
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From page 44...
... Analytical tools such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy or microscale double laser mass spectrometry have been used to locate and identify PAHs in sediment material. Biological tools are used to evaluate the entry of a contaminant into living organisms without measuring processes A-C.
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From page 45...
... Tom Dillion, of Science Applications International Corporation, stated that he was involved about 25 years ago in a government program to remediate very low level radioactively contaminated sites. The program' s issue was removal or stabilization.
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From page 46...
... Carbon Treatment Concentration Mark Matsumoto, of the University of California at Riverside, asked why only one concentration of carbon was used and if there is any way to determine the differences in the way the sediment and the activated carbon capture the contaminants..
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Key Terms

  • activated carbon
  • absorption efficiency
  • organic contaminants
  • aqueous equilibrium
  • francisco bay

  • hydrophobic organic
  • carbon content
  • total organic
  • bioavailability processes
  • organic matter

  • ned black
  • transport processes
  • lauritzen channel
  • low level
  • move forward

  • superfund site
  • mechanistic understanding
  • adding activated
  • equilibrium tests
  • fisher lampblack

  • hydrophobic compounds
  • sorption capacity
  • natural organic
  • mechanistic approaches
  • physical transport

  • water quality
  • luthy responded
  • sorption capacities
  • contaminated sediments
  • soot carbon


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