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THE ROLE OF TEMPERATURE DISEQUILIBRIUM IN MONITORING LOW VOLATILITY CONTAMINANT MIGRATION
Citation:
Loux, N T. THE ROLE OF TEMPERATURE DISEQUILIBRIUM IN MONITORING LOW VOLATILITY CONTAMINANT MIGRATION. Presented at Fourth International Symposium of Elements in Biological, Environmental and Toxicological Sciences, Whistler, Canada, June 25-July 1, 2000.
Description:
Temperature disequilibrium is a common phenomenon within and among envirornnental media at local regional continental and global scales. The significance of temperature disequilibrium on low vapor pressure environmental contaminant migration has only rarely been addressed in the technical literature. A model describing the effects of diel atmospheric temperature variations on the rates of elemental mercury evasion from natural waters has been developed (Loux, 1999). Among other things, the approach relies on the estimation of non-isothermal Henry's law constants for Quantifying toxicant medium-specific chemical potentials under temperature disequ#ibrium conditions. Although applied to elemental mercury, the thermodynamic framework is applicable to any low volatility compound where sufficient background information is available. Findings from the present work relative to monitoring refractory and labile toxicant air/water exchange and modeling temperature-gradient-mediated contaminant migration will be discussed.