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CURRENT
RESEARCH AREAS
Flow Injection
Analysis
Flow
Injection Analysis (FIA) is a powerful flow-through technique for
solution manipulation prior to detection. It allows inexpensive
automation of chemical analysis, and is fast and economical with
respect to sample and reagent consumption. Research currently
conducted in this area is focused on the development of fast and
highly sensitive flow methods for the direct determination of
environmental pollutants such as heavy metals (As, Sb, Hg), cyanide and nutrients (ammonia,
orthophosphate, nitrite, nitrate) in natural waters and industrial
wastewaters. Some of these pollutants are volatile species or species
which can be converted chemically into volatile compounds. These
pollutants can be determined directly in complex environmental and
industrial samples containing suspensions, emulsions, surfactants or
corrosive compounds after their online separation from the sample
matrix in a gas-diffusion or pervaporation
cells. Spectrophotometric, amperometric and chemiluminescence
detectors have been used in the flow injection systems developed.
Current
collaborators in this area
Chemical Sensors
Research in this area
covers the development, study and application of three main classes
of chemical sensors:
electrochemical
sensors such as amperometric and potentiometric (micro)electrodes and arrays of
such electrodes.
gas sensors
such as micropellistors.
optical
chemical sensors (optodes) utilizing redox or complexation analytical
reactions.
Micro
chemical sensors allow the construction of portable chemical
analyzers suitable for on-site environmental monitoring.
Current
collaborators in this area
Membrane Extraction
Solvent
extraction has been widely used in metal separation and concentration
in the recycling of industrial metal resources and wastewater
treatment processes. One of the most important problems associated
with industrial solvent extraction is the large inventory of
expensive extractants and solvents
required. An alternative environmentally friendly and inexpensive
approach for metal separation and concentration can be based on the
use of liquid membranes. Research currently conducted in this area is
centered on the theory and application of membrane extraction
involving polymer inclusion membranes (PIM) incorporating
industrially used liquid ion-exchangers (e.g. Aliquat
336 chloride and di-2-ethylhexyl-phosphoric acid). These membranes
have shown promising results for the recovery of various metals ions
such as Au(III), Cd(II),
Cu(II), Pd(II), Zn(II), Hg(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) from their acidic
aqueous solutions.
There
is a strong and expanding collaboration between my research group and
Dr Ian Potter's group at La Trobe
University in research on PIMs. This
involves the sharing of knowledge and resources through discussions
and joint research group meetings. However, both groups recognize
that the ownership of any original research and methodology resides
with the individual researcher.
Current
collaborators in this area
Metal Hyperaccumulating Plants
Metal hyperaccumulating plants have the ability to not
only survive in soils rich in heavy metals but they can also
accumulate these heavy metals in their above ground tissues. These
unique properties of metal hyperaccumulating
plants make them potentially very useful in soil phytoremediation
and biomining. The mechanism of metal hyperaccumulation is not completely understood.
Research currently conducted in this area is focused on studying the
mechanism of cobalt, nickel and gold hyperaccumulation
in various plant species.
Current
collaborators in this area
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