he course provides an overview on the occurrence and behavior of
organic and inorganic chemicals in the environment. The course
addresses how sampling and chemical analysis can be used to study and
understand environmental processes and fate of pollutants.
Roger Reeve, Introduction to environmental analysis. Wiley. - F.W.
Fifield and D. Kealey, Principles and practical of analytical chemistry
Learning Objectives
Knowledge acquired: Chemical substances and their physical chemical
properties; transport processes and fate of the pollutants in the
environment; water/soil/air sampling techniques; sample preparation,
extraction, clean-up and analysis for the determination of organic and
inorganic contaminants; instrumental techniques. Competence acquired:
develop the skills necessary to choose the appropriate sampling and/or
analysis method for determination of volatile, non volatile, polar and non
polar compounds in air, water and soil; quali and quantitatively assess
the occurrence of pollutants in the environment; evaluate occurrence,
sources, transport processes, fate and toxicological and ecotoxicological
effects of pollutants; characterize and discuss environmental and health
impacts of contaminants
Teaching Methods
CFU: 6 Total hours of the course: 48 (including Lectures and lab activities)
Type of Assessment
Colloquium on the course topics. Oral power point slide presentation
(about 10 minutes) on a cutting-edge environmental topic
Course program
Class lectures: - Introduction to the main classes of organic and inorganic
pollutants in water, air and soil. - Basics on air/water/soil pollutants:
occurrence, production, origin, distribution, transport, transformation and
their fate in the environment. - Legacy, emerging and new persistent
organic pollutants (POPs) (such as organochlorine pesticides, dioxins,
PCBs, PBDEs, BTEX, PFCs) with focus on chemical-physical properties that
influence occurrence and persistence, reactivity, dispersion and
decomposition in the environment. Stockholm Convention. - National and
international legislations on limits and methods of analysis of
environmental pollutants - Overview on the most common methods for
air/water/soil sampling, sample preparation, treatment and storage. -
Knowledge of the principal extraction methods for environmental
analysis: Liquid-Liquid extraction, Solid Phase Extraction (SPE), Solid
Phase Micro-Extraction (SPME), Solid-Liquid Extraction, Soxhlet and
Soxtec methods, Accelerated solvent extraction, assisted Microwave
extraction. - Instrumental analytical techniques for pollutant analysis,
mainly chromatographic techniques, such as high pressure liquid
chromatography (HPLC), gas-chromatography (GC); mass spectrometry
(MS); coupling HPLC-MS and GC-MS; - Quality Assurance and Quality
Control (QA/QC) in the analytical laboratory: quality of analytical data,
accuracy and precision, recovery, field and lab blanks, repeatability and
reproducibility, calibration curve, reference materials, limit of detection,
validation of analytical data. - Environmental toxicology and risk
assessment Laboratory: Determination of specific pollutants in
soil/water/air samples: sampling, treatment and analysis. Instrumental
analysis. Data elaboration.