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Stanbury, J. R. (1958) Some organic constituents of atmospheric pollution. Doctoral thesis, Sir John Cass College.
The thesis is divided into four main parts. The first section starts with an historical review of atmospheric pollution. The main sources of pollution are reviewed together with a discussion on the various methods available for the determination of inorganic and organic compounds present in the atmosphere. The measurement of atmospheric pollution is next discussed. Mention is made of the three main smog disasters. The increase in the incidence of lung cancer is then discussed. The nature and structure of the polycylic hydrocarbons together with the theoretical aspects of the chromatographic and spectroscopic technique employed in this study complete this section.
The experimental work is divided into three parts. In the first part a study is made of several methods for standardising the activity of the alumina which was used in the chromatography. The results of these experiments show that the activity can be standardised by exposing the alumina to sulphuric acid containing a known percentage by weight of water. The second part deals with the analysis of atmospheric solid deposited matter for polycyclic hydrocarbons from three sources, sampling being carried out throughout one year. The results of this work agree in some respects to those obtained by other workers on suspended matter. Thus for the eight compounds studied, the amounts of hydrocarbons in micrograms per gram of solid increased during the winter months to approximately three and a half times the summer value. However the amounts of hydrocarbons in deposited matter are less than those in suspended matter.
The work has also entailed the investigation of some hitherto unreported compounds and attempts have been made to isolate some of them. A material has been isolated which has the characteristics of a long chain paraffinic and/or olefinic hydrocarbon.
The final section deals with the determination of germanium by author and of vanadium and lead by a co-worker. It was hoped that these elements would be useful as giving some indication of the source of pollution, i.e. germanium for coal, lead for petrol and vanadium for oil. The results however have shown to be inconclusive.
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