M2-01 Flashcards
what three realms of health do contaminants impact
animal, human, and envrion
ecotoxicology
the study of the source and fates of chemicals in the environment w/ the ecological and toxicological effect of chemicals on population, communities and ecosystems
bioaccumulation vs biomagnification
accumulation: increase in one organism over time
magnification: increase in conc as you move up a food chain
common environ contaminants
PCB
DDT
PFAS
PAH
17B-estradiol
CD, PB, HG, AS
what is fate
what happnes to a chemical once it enters the environment. this depends on environ conditions, properties of the chemical and the patterns of use ( where and how frequently it was introduced)
key characteristics of chemicals
-solubility in water and air (vapor pressure)
- suscepitbily to degradation/ transformation
- Octanol-water partition coeff (is the mole hydrophili or lithophilic)
Octanol-water partition coeff
if greater than one, the chemical is lithophilic (will be stored in fat)
quite common for large non polar moles (lots of Cl and CH groups)
denoted as Kow
what is an unexpected way that POPs get into the artict
(heavily used in the equatorial region)
migrate through evaporation/ volatilization of chemicals and long range atmospheric transport (grasshopper effect)
forms of mercury
elemental (liquid)
inorg
organic (methyl-mercury)
toxicity will vary from form to form
what kind of pollutant is mercury
a global pollutant.
commonly disperped in low income countired related to gold mining.
mercury used to extract gold from ore dust. then melted away
what kind of toxin is mercury
neurotoxic- able to pass through the blood brain barrier’
it is also methylated by bacterial in water column- easily taken up when in its organic form
