Sensors based on nanostructured materials, due to their extremely reduced size as well as electrical and optical properties related to the matter arrangement, are able both to communicate with the infinitely small world and to perceive and to reveal even a single molecule in the atmosphere or a single ion in the liquid. In addition the development of nanostructured sensing materials provides high surface-area-to-volume ratio layers mimicking the strong biological sensory systems. These sensors ...

L'attività svolta è stata incentrata principalmente sullo studio dei processi chimici legati all'inquinamento ambientale, ed ha permesso di maturare l'esperienza necessaria a valutare, sul campo, l'affidabilità delle principali tecniche di campionamento e di analisi e lo studio di processi tecnologici e sistemi di abbattimento che consentano la riduzione degli inquinanti. a) Sviluppo di metodiche per l'identificazione ed il dosaggio di microinquinanti organici Lo sviluppo di tecniche on-line ...

Urban pollution is a many-sided issue of main complexity, either since a major fraction of population live in large or medium- sized cities, where exposure to the urban cocktail may induce serious health effects, or due to the fact that urban areas represent an important pollution source themselves. Concerning the airborne particulate matter, a hugely composite mix of many different inorganic and organic chemical species under solid or liquid phase in the atmosphere, the urban environment ...

In the framework of the Agreement between the Italian Ministry for the environment, land and sea - Department for Environmental Research and Development and the Institute of Atmospheric Pollution (IIA) - National Research Council, the IIA assists the Ministry to coordinate the Italian participation to the EU activities and programs and to the international negotiations (UNEP and UNECE). At regional level, the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) represents since ...

An extensive investigation focused on the occurrence of legal and illicit psychotropic substances in the atmosphere was started in 2006, after cocaine was identified in Rome. Several investigations have been carried out in Italy and abroad in urban, suburban and rural areas, and an important data base has been set up. According to it, the illicit substances seem to be widespread in the environment and show time and space modulations independent of those of usual air pollutants. On the basis of ...

Recent news of mercury contamination in the Priolo-Agusta-Melilli industrial zone (Sicily) brought to public attention the seriousness of mercury pollution on human health and ecosystems. Mercury pollution is a long standing environmental problem, going back to the 19th century, starting with mercury used in gold extraction in North America; this practice is still widely used in Laos, Vietnam, Tanzania and Venezuela today. Mercury is much used in the manufacturing industry (eg., chlor-alkali ...

All plants emit a wide range of volatile compounds such as nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, and non-methane volatile organic compounds, the so-called biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC). BVOC emissions have received increased scientific attention in the last two decades because BVOCs are highly reactive and, thus, may profoundly influence the chemical and physical properties of the atmosphere. The global carbon emitted as BVOCs is about 1.1 Pg per year, and is believed to be of the same ...

Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons (NPAH) and environment. Nitrated polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAH) have been recognised as belonging to long-term toxic compounds and, on the other hand, were identified in several anthropogenic emissions and among by-products of photochemical smog: Therefore, in seventies and eighties they began subject of investigation in ambient air and emission products, although any regulation limited they release in the environment. Our institute, IIA-CNR, ...

NICE Measurements of atmospheric and snow nitrates and nitrites and their fluxes above the snow surface were made during two campaigns during spring 2001 at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard as part of the EU project "The NItrogen Cycle and Effects on the oxidation of atmospheric trace species at high latitudes" (NICE). Recent findings of NOx and HONO production in snow interstitial air showed that photochemical production of NOx in snow surfaces is sufficient to alter the composition of the ...