Over the years, various techniques have been used to check for inorganic and organic pollutants that are present in the environment. However, the extensive distribution of many different species that are present in soil and water among other environmental bodies complicates the capacity to attain correct analysis of these pollutants. In order to tackle these issues, thin film technology is used as it has shown to be highly reliable in picking out pollutants, especially those that come from mining sites.
During mining, various pollutants can be released and they could eventually contaminate the environment nearby. Several of these are highly toxic pollutants that are used in mining processes. They include heavy metals such as cadmium, cobalt, arsenic, lead and copper as well as acids. Organic substances that are pollutants include compounds like polychlorinated biphenyls while inorganic compounds that are pollutants include sulfates, radionuclide ions and toxic metals.
Sampling Techniques
There are two leading techniques that have consistently been used over the years to assess and analyze the existence of pollutants in the environment. They are passive and grab sampling.
Passive sampling is a technique that has been used extensively and is a reciprocal to grab sampling. This technique entails the use of passive samplers that apply specific compounds found in the environment. Frequently implemented passive samplers in the assessment of organic contaminants in water resources include the polar organic chemical integrative. However, this technique is costly and requires a lot of time for careful calibration. In addition to this, water flow velocity and high temperatures can negatively affect this sampling procedure as well.
On the other hand, grab sampling, is generally used to check and calibrate the micro pollutants that may exist in aquatic environments. This approach is economical and simple to use to get results but it has disadvantages. These include the requirement for a large volume of water to be used during the sampling as well as an overall lack of temporal representativeness.
Diffusive gradient thin films may be used to check and compute the existence of the possible contaminants in a broad range of samples that may have been contaminated by various elements. This is done by measuring the soluble metals that diffuse through a filter and collect on a binding agent, commonly a hydrogel diffusive layer. These films are designed to only bind to specific categories of elements, which allows the researcher to control the sampling rate of contaminants to the device while also recording highly accurate measurements.
Despite research showing that the availability of other elements in high quantities can affect the capacity with which these devices can measure metal concentrations accurately, the films are still considered useful and help measure pollution in both organic and inorganic compounds as well as even in samples drawn from extremely acidic areas.
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