Smog is a problem. But the knowledge about its constituents – no longer. Researchers from several leading Warsaw scientific institutions have joined forces and developed a new, extremely precise method for the chemical analysis of suspended particulate matter. The method, easily adaptable in many modern laboratories, not only determines the chemical composition of compounds, but even recognizes changes in the spatial distribution of atoms in molecules.
Smog is a problem. But the knowledge about its constituents – no longer. Researchers from several leading Warsaw scientific institutions have joined forces and developed a new, extremely precise method for the chemical analysis of suspended particulate matter. The method, easily adaptable in many modern laboratories, not only determines the chemical composition of compounds, but even recognizes changes in the spatial distribution of atoms in molecules.
Atmospheric particulate matter, popularly known as smog, is becoming more and more troublesome. Its particles are now attacking the lungs of the inhabitants of not only big cities. In industrialized countries it is literally everywhere, even in forest areas seemingly distant from urban agglomerations. This ubiquitous smog is characterized by a huge richness of chemical compounds, many of them occurring in isomeric forms, differing in the distribution of atoms in the molecule, and consequently also in their chemical properties. The detection of these isomers used to be the weak point of modern analytical techniques – until now.
In the pages of Analytical Chemistry, Warsaw-based scientists from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS), the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the PAS and the Institute of Environmental Protection of the National Research Institute have presented a method of extremely precise analysis of smog particles. The new analytical technique will be able to be used by any relatively modernly equipped chemical laboratory.
Read more at Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences
