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- Söderström, Gunilla, 1964-
(författare)
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On the combustion and photolytic degradation products of some brominated flame retardants
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Many modern products, especially electronic goods, are protected by brominated flame retardants (BFR). Some of the most common flame retardants are polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDE), tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBP-A) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD). These compounds have been found in environmental samples and shown to have physiological effects on experimental animals. This thesis considers end-of-life aspects of brominated flame retardants. When spread in the environment, these compounds may be degraded into other forms. For example, if sludge contaminated with PBDE is used as an agricultural fertilizer, the PBDE could be degraded by sunlight to species of PBDE with lower degree of bromination and, to some extent, also form polybrominated dibenzofurans (PBDF). In addition, PBDF and polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PBDD) are formed during combustion of brominated flame retardants. When waste products with brominated flame retardants are co-combusted with household waste or other chlorinated fuel, polybrominated- chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PBCDD) and polybrominated- chlorinated dibenzofurans (PBCDF)will be formed. The bromin/chlorine composition of dioxins and furans is dependent on the bromine/chlorine ratio in the fuel, but the types of brominated flame retardants that are being combusted is less important. In the studies reported here, bromine levels higher than "normal" for household waste has been used. The results show that there is a pronounced increase in total dioxin levels in fluegas when when bromine is present, implying that waste containing brominated flame retardants should only be incinerated at combustion plants with effecient air pollution control devices.
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| 2. |
- Scott Andersson, Åsa, 1970-
(författare)
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Development of an Environment-Accident Index : A planning tool to protect the environment in case of a chemical spill
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The increasing mass and complexity of chemicals being produced and transported has resulted in more rigorous demands on both authorities as well as chemical-handling industries to assess the risks involved. The Environment-Accident Index (EAI), has been proposed as a planning tool created as an equation in which chemical properties (variables describing the chemical involved) are combined with site-specific properties (variables describing the accident site). The EAI is intended to facilitate assessment of the environmental effects related to chemical accident scenarios and hence assist the organisation of preventative programs. The main objective of the work described in this thesis was to evaluate, develop and improve the proposed EAI. The steps involved in the development process included I) evaluation of the feasibility of the EAI approach, II) selection of a representative and diverse set of chemical accidents to be used in the development III) the use of questionnaires and expert judgements to develop response values for environmental effects of a chemical accident, and IV) to create a new EAI model using multivariate modelling (PLS). The EAI approach proved to be useful in the work to protect the environment in case of a chemical accident. A representative set of accidents was selected by means of statistical multivariate design (PCA) based on assembled data related to a set of 55 chemical accidents. The selection generated a set of accidents representing a diverse spectrum of chemical accident scenarios. To develop a measure of environmental effects of the chemical accidents i.e. responses, an expert panel was asked to judge their environmental effects (such as effects on animal life in the aquatic or terrestrial environment). The results showed that the judgements give a rough estimate of environmental effects that could be used as responses in the development of the EAI. The developed responses were then related to the chemical and site-specific properties to create a new EAI model. This resulted in a PLS-based EAI connected to a new classification scale. The advantages of the new EAI are that it can be calculated without the use of tables; it can estimate the effects for all included responses, and make a rough classification of chemical accidents according to the new classification scale. Finally, the new EAI is a more stable model than the previously proposed EAI, and it is founded on a valid base of accident scenarios, making its use for a variety of chemicals and situations more reliable since it covers a broader spectrum of accident scenarios. The new EAI can be expressed as a regression model to facilitate calculation of the index for people that do not have access to PLS. The highest priorities for further refining the new EAI in the future are: external validation of the EAI; further refinement of the formula’s structure; adjustment of the new classification scale; and real-life evaluation of the EAI.
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| 3. |
- Söderström, Hanna, 1974-
(författare)
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Semipermeable membrane devices as integrative tools for monitoring nonpolar aromatic compounds in air
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Air pollutants pose a high risk for humans, and the environment, and this pollution is one of the major environmental problems facing modern society. Active air sampling is the technique that has been traditionally used to monitor nonpolar aromatic air pollutants. However, active high volume samplers (HiVols) require a power supply, maintenance and specialist operators, and the equipment is often expensive. Thus, there is a need to develop new, less complicated sampling techniques that can increase the monitoring frequency, the geographical distribution of the measurements, and the number of sites used in air monitoring programs. In the work underlying this thesis, the use of semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) as tools for monitoring gas phase concentrations of nonpolar aromatic compound was evaluated using the compound classes polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), alkylated PAHs (alkyl-PAHs) and nitrated PAHs (nitro-PAHs) as test compounds. High wind-speeds increased the uptake and release in SPMDs of PAHs and PCBs with log KOA values > 7.9, demonstrating that the uptake of most nonpolar aromatic compounds is controlled by the boundary layer at the membrane-air interface. The use of a metal umbrella to shelter the SPMDs decreased the uptake of PAHs and PCBs by 38 and 55 percent, respectively, at high wind/turbulence, and thus reduced the wind effect. Further, the use of performance reference compounds (PRCs) to assess the site effect of wind on the uptake in SPMDs reduced the between-site differences to less than 50 percent from as much as three times differences in uptake of PCBs and PAHs. However, analytical interferences reduced the precision of some PRCs, showing the importance of using robust analytical quality control. SPMDs were shown to be efficient samplers of gas phase nonpolar aromatic compounds, and were able to determine local, continental and indoor spatial distributions of PAHs, alkyl- PAHs and nitro-PAHs. In addition, the use of the SPMDs, which do not require electricity, made sampling possible at remote/rural areas where the infrastructure was limited. SPMDs were also used to determine the source of PAH pollution, and different approaches were discussed. Finally, SPMDs were used to estimate the importance of the gas phase exposure route to the uptake of PAHs in plants. The results demonstrate that SPMDs have several advantages compared with HiVols, including integrative capacity over long times, reduced costs, and no need of special operators, maintenance or power supply for sampling. However, calibration data of SPMDs in air are limited, and spatial differences are often only semi-quantitatively determined by comparing amounts and profiles in the SPMDs, which have limited their use in air monitoring programs. In future work, it is therefore important that SPMDs are properly sheltered, PRCs are used in the sampling protocols, and that calibrated sampling rate data, or the SPMD-air partition data, of specific compounds are further developed to make determination of time weighted average (TWA) concentrations possible.
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