Analytical Chemistry in inter-disciplinary environmental science

Abstract

The traditional rôle of analytical chemistry in environmental science deals with monitoring air, water and food for pollution, and the techniques for setting and enforcing legal pollution control standards. The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the importance of an expanded rôle for the analytical chemist as a participant in inter-disciplinary research in environmental science.

Such research may involve the major environmental units, namely air, soil, water, plants and animals, or subdivisions of those units into smaller and smaller sub-units down to the molecular level. At each stage, the analytical chemist is called upon to answer increasingly detailed questions about environmental pollutants, including distribution on a macro-or micro-scale, the physical and chemical form of the pollutant, the nature of its interaction with its substrate, and the rates of transfer from one location to another or from one form to another.

A number of examples selected from the author's own experience and from the literature are presented to illustrate the depth and variety of problems confronting the analytical chemist in such research.