Key words: potentially toxic elements (PTE), physicochemical properties of solid carriers of PTE, environmental media, geogenic/anthropogenic processes, physicochemical changes, particle micromorphology, surface microtexture, composition, multi-analytical characterisation

Content

In urban-industrial areas, pollution sources must be identified in order to limit emissions of the sources that contribute most to pollution. Solid carriers of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) are present in all environmental media, which are in constant interaction with each other, with solid carriers migrating between them and undergoing changes in their physicochemical properties characteristic of their sources due to various processes triggered by urbanisation and climate change. This affects the use of solid carriers as source indicators. Their behaviour in the environment is poorly understood due to the complexity of an integrated research approach that would provide this knowledge.

The project is based on the hypothesis that solid carriers of PTEs undergo significant changes in their characteristic properties during their migration between different environmental media and that the precise knowledge of these changes enables the use of modified solid carriers of PTEs as source indicators. The hypotheses will be tested by identifying primary solid carriers of PTEs in different environmental media and determining their characteristic physicochemical properties and their changes during migration, evaluating the usefulness of altered properties and solid carriers of PTEs as source indicators, and developing a model of material flow in the environment that allows the prediction of the fate of solid pollutants under the long-term effects of climate change.

The project objectives will be achieved by studying processes and changes in physicochemical properties and stability of solid carriers of PTEs in different environmental media and by field and laboratory column, leaching and bioaccessibility tests under different conditions, followed by characterisation using chemical, mineralogical, electron microanalytical and Raman microspectroscopy analytical techniques. 

Project phases:

1. Selection of study areas + fieldwork plan (M1-M6)

2. Sampling + field measurements (M1-M12)

3. Field + laboratory experiments (M1-M24)

4. Laboratory sample preparation (M1-M24)

5. Sample analyses + laboratory measurements (M1-M30)

6. Data processing + interpretation (M13-M36)