Recently observed rapid climate changes have focused the attention of researchers and river managers on the possible effects of increased flooding frequency on the mobilization and redistribution of historical pollutants within some river systems. This text summarizes regularities in the flood-related transport, channel-to-floodplain transfer, and storage and remobilization of heavy metals, which are the most persistent environmental pollutants in river systems. Metal-dispersal processes are essentially much more variable in alluvia than in soils of non-inundated areas due to the effects of flood-sediment sorting and the mixing of pollutants with grains of different origins in a catchment, resulting in changes of one to two orders of magnitude in metal content over distances of centimetres. Furthermore, metal remobilization can be more intensive in alluvia than in soils as a result of bank erosion, prolonged floodplain inundation associated with reducing conditions alternating with oxygen-driven processes of dry periods and frequent water-table fluctuations, which affect the distribution of metals at low-lying strata. Moreover, metal storage and remobilization are controlled by river channelization, but their influence depends on the period and extent of the engineering works. Generally, artificial structures such as groynes, dams or cut-off channels performed before pollution periods favour the entrapment of polluted sediments, whereas the floodplains of lined river channels that adjust to new, post-channelization hydraulic conditions become a permanent sink for fine polluted sediments, which accumulate solely during overbank flows. Metal mobilization in such floodplains takes place only by slow leaching, and their sediments, which accrete at a moderate rate, are the best archives of the catchment pollution with heavy metals.
Graphene oxide composites with photocatalysts may exhibit better properties than pure photocatalysts via improvement of their textural and electronic properties.
1 January 2002 in Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications
The topic of the review is the electrochemical analysis of solids aimed to identify or determine their phase or elemental composition, analyse the composition of solid mixtures, characterise their electrochemistry-related properties and analyse the redox state of the constituent elements. The ways of the electrode preparation are discussed with a special attention paid to compact and composite electrodes including carbon-paste electrodes, and direct immobilisation of powders on a working electrode. Examples are given of simultaneous electrochemical measurements combined with X-ray diffraction, optical or atomic force microscopy, and mass measurement by quartz microbalance. The state-of-art of voltammetric analysis of inorganic and organic solids achieved in the last two decades is systematically reviewed with the aim to find cases, when electrochemistry can compete successfully with other analytical techniques as for sensitivity, specificity, and sample consumption. Electrochemical methods are shown to be a perspective tool for redox analysis of catalysts, combined elemental and phase analysis of inorganic pigments and minerals, characterisation of solid solutions, metalloorganic and organic solids. A review with 196 references.