Estratègies per a la monitortizació de plom en mostres mediambientals emprant sensors electroquímics i (micro)sistemes analítics
- Autores: Eva Arasa Puig
- Directores de la Tesis: Julián Alonso Chamarro (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2015
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Jordi Bartrolí i Molins (presid.), Cecilia Jimenez Jorquera (secret.), Santiago Hernández Cassou (voc.)
- Materias:
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- Resumen
Lead has been used for multiple purposes during centuries (water pipes, paint, batteries, etc.). Currently, due to their toxicity and their bioaccumulative nature, its use is in recession. However, due to its high persistence in the environment, it can still be found in significant amounts in the environment and water sources.
The main objective of the present work is to provide tools and/or information necessary to ascertain whether the legislation relating to the concentration of lead in different media is complied. This thesis is divided into two main parts. The first is the monitoring of lead contamination in drinking water and soils, basically using classical analytical techniques.
Water pollution by lead is a problem that still exists in some households due to the presence of old lead pipes as domiciliary water distribution system. In this thesis, and under a contract agreement with the companies Societat d¿Aigües de Barcelona and Adasa Sistemas, an automated system based on solid phase extraction is designed and optimized and a protocol to assess the sampling intake of lead for drinking water is proposed, following the requirements of Directive 98/83/EC. On the other hand, in order to assess the ingestion of lead during the use of a pipe, a study of the lead leaching of a new lead pipe has been done. A brief introduction on this field and the description of the development, characterization and validation of the equipment are presented in Chapter 3.
On the other hand, soil pollution usually appears in areas close to metallurgical industry. This situation is exemplified in this thesis in the case of the city of Torreon (Mexico). Thus, in the framework of a cooperation agreement with the company Met-Mex Peñoles, the area near the company is monitored periodically during years (2000-2013) in order to evaluate the actions taken by the company to minimize fugitive emissions and leaks and to remediate the affected area. The information on this study can be found in Chapter 4.
Due to the problems (information delay, high cost, and operability only in controlled environments) that classical analytical techniques present to meet the desired high information demands for environmental monitoring, the main goal of the second part of this thesis is focused into finding alternatives to solve/minimize these drawbacks. Thus, screening systems have been developed using electrochemical sensors (potentiometric and voltammetric) as detection systems, while taking advantage of the features that miniaturization technologies can offer. These systems have been developed to operate in both continuous flow and discrete (batch) conditions.
To achieve this goal, different selective lead electrodes (commercial and synthesized in the GSB research group) as well as various solid conductor transducers, compatible with the microfabrication technology and the LTCC technology (screen printed, modified under different electroplating conditions) have been evaluated. Moreover, the configuration of the detection cell in microfluidic systems has been optimized. All this information is detailed in Chapter 5. After that, different electrode materials, some of them obtained by microelectronics (for instance voltammetric sensors) have been tested for lead determination. All this work is described in Chapter 6.
