Search results for "BTEX"
showing 10 items of 23 documents
The Impact of Candle Burning During All Saints’ Day Ceremonies on Ambient Alkyl-Substituted Benzene Concentrations
2013
Research findings concerning benzene, toluene, ethylobenzene, meta-, para- and ortho-xylene as well as styrene (BTEXS) emission at public cemeteries during All Saints’ Day are presented here. Tests were carried out at town-located cemeteries in Opole and Grodków (southern Poland) and, as a benchmark, at the centres of those same towns. The purpose of the study was to estimate BTEXS emissions caused by the candle burning and, equally important to examine, whether emissions generated by the tested sources were similar to the BTEXS emissions generated by road transport. During the festive period, significant increases in benzene concentrations, by 200 % and 144 %, were noted at the cemeteries …
Kone ja automaatti
2011
Literary Machines and Automata: Feedbacking Poetics The article discusses the concepts of “machine”, “automatic”, and “feedback loop” as literary and poetic ideas from the terminological, historical, and contemporary perspectives. All of them can be seen as somewhat paradoxical terms, carrying human and organic connotations with them. The key phenomenon of this article is the generator, a machine or system that produces – generates – text. The history of poetic automata extends well beyond the Internet, computer, or even electricity. The article illustrates its claims with examples of poetry generators, from a combinatory poem of the Baroque era to a few Finnish contemporary digital works. …
Study of the influence of temperature and precipitations on the levels of BTEX in natural waters.
2013
Assessment of seasonal changes in surface water quality is an important aspect for evaluating temporal variation of water due to natural or anthropogenic inputs of point and non-point sources. The objective of this paper was to investigate the influence of seasonal temperature fluctuations and precipitations on the levels of BTEX in natural waters. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate the seasonal correlations of BTEX levels in water and to extract the parameters that are most important in assessing seasonal variations of water quality. This study was carried out as a part of VOCs monitoring program in natural water samples from Mediterranean coast. To carry out this proj…
Comparative Decadence? Male Queerness in Late Nineteenth- and Late Twentieth-Century Fiction
2018
Emig’s chapter compares Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library. After outlining the different historical contexts of queer masculinity in the novels, it points out parallels, such as its legal repression in late Victorianism and at the time of the AIDS crisis under Thatcher. Wilde’s novel provokes with homoerotic longing, Hollinghurst’s with pornographic depictions of gay sex. Both texts are decadent fantasies, yet also criticise double standards of hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity. Hollinghurst’s novel further exposes its Wildean subtext as class-ridden and colonial. In addition, the scandalous male as narcissistic consumer of …
Evaluation of the Soil Contamination of Tangier (Morocco) by the Determination of BTEX, PCBs, and PAHs
2009
Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX), twelve polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and seven polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), were selected as pollutants to evaluate the contamination of soils in the urban and industrial areas of Tangier (Morocco). PAHs and PCBs were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) after a microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) clean-up. BTEX were directly determined by head-space GC-MS. Results obtained in this study show the presence of high levels of BTEX and PAHs in the soil near the urban waste deposit. However, the analysis of pollutants in the other sampling sites provided comprehensive …
The Seasonality Impact of the BTEX Pollution on the Atmosphere of Arad City, Romania
2021
Benzene, toluene, and total BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) concentrations registered for one year (2016) have been determined every month for one high-density traffic area. The assessment was performed in Arad City, Romania, to evaluate these pollutants and their influence on the inhabitants’ health. The contaminants were sampled using a static sampling method and analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Benzene was the most dominant among the BTEX compounds—the average concentrations ranged from 18.00 ± 1.32 µg m−3 in December to 2.47 ± 0.74 µg m−3 in August. The average toluene concentration over the year was 4.36 ± 2.42 µg m−3 (with a maximum of 9…
Determining exhaust fumes exposure in chainsaw operations
2016
Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate the inhalation exposure of forest operators to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and total xylenes) contained in the exhaust fumes released from chainsaws and to suggest possible countermeasures. The study was carried out in four silvicultural treatments (coppice clearcut, conifer thinning, conifer pruning, and sanitary cut), using three types of chainsaw fuel (normal two-stroke petrol mix and two alkylate fuels). Eighty personal air samples were collected; IOM samplers combined with Amberlite XAD-2 sorbent tubes were used for collecting PAHs and Radiello® samplers were used for BTEX. Resu…
Development of a versatile, easy and rapid atmospheric monitor for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes determination in air
2009
Abstract A new procedure for the passive sampling in air of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene isomers (BTEX) is proposed. A low-density polyethylene layflat tube filled with a mixture of solid phases provided a high versatility tool for the sampling of volatile compounds from air. Several solid phases were assayed in order to increase the BTEX absorption in the sampler and a mixture of florisil and activated carbon provided the best results. Direct head-space-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (HS-GC–MS) measurement of the whole deployed sampler was employed for a fast determination of BTEX. Absorption isotherms were used to develop simple mathematical models for the estimation of…
Air monitoring of selected volatile organic compounds in wineries using passive sampling and headspace-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
2014
Abstract Volatile compounds released during the production of wine at different steps of the winemaking process were evaluated using semipermeable membranes based passive samplers. Preliminary data on the differences between five wine varieties were provided together with the indoor quality of air to which winery workers are exposed during their professional activity. A simple, green and fast analytical methodology was employed for the direct analysis of deployed samplers by using head space (HS) gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) without any sample pre-treatment and avoiding the use of solvents. Terpenes as styrene, pinene, p-cymene and limonene were found at concentration levels…
Desarrollo de métodos analíticos para evaluar la efectividad de cosméticos antipolución
2021
La contaminación ambiental es un problema tanto local como global de gran importancia en la actualidad. En concreto, la contaminación urbana es uno de los principales peligros para la salud humana, y en especial para la salud de la piel, lo que ha provocado un incremento de la concienciación y la preocupación con respecto a los niveles de contaminación en aire. La aparición de cosméticos antipolución, destinados a combatir estos efectos negativos sobre la salud humana, es el resultado de dicha preocupación. Sin embargo, el desarrollo de metodologías analíticas adecuadas para la evaluación de su efectividad es un gran desafío. Por ello, la presente Tesis se centra en el desarrollo de métodos…