Specific Determination of Airborne Sulfates and Sulfuric Acid
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1977 Specific etD ermination of Airborne Sulfates and Sulfuric Acid. Purnendu Kumar Dasgupta Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Dasgupta, Purnendu Kumar, "Specific eD termination of Airborne Sulfates and Sulfuric Acid." (1977). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3152. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3152 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Michigan 48106 USA St. Jo h n 's Road, Tyler's G reen High Wycombe. Bucks, England HP10 8HR I I 78-7543 DASGUPTA, Purnendu Kumar, 1949- SPECIFIC DETERMINATION OF AIRBORNE SULFATES AND SULFURIC ACID. The Louisiana S ta te U niversity and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1977 Chemistry, analytical University Microfilms International,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 SPECIFIC DETERMINATION OF AIRBORNE SULFATES AND SUIFURIC ACID A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Chemistry by Purnendu Kumar Dasgupta M.Sc. U n iv e rsity o f Burdwan, 1970 December, 1977 PLEASE NOTE: This dissertation contains color photographs which will not reproduce wel1. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS INTERNATIONAL. TO My MOTHER "...Every breeze that blows kindly is one crystal breath We exhale on the blue diamond heaven As gentle to touch as the hands of the healer As soft as the farewells whispered over the coffin We're poisoned with venom with each breath we take From the brown sulphur chimney And the black highway snake ...Every fish that swims silent, every bird that flies freely Every doe that steps softly, every crisp leaf that falls All the flowers that grow on this colorful tapestry Somehow they know that if man is allowed to destroy all we need He w ill soon have to pay with his life for his greed." - Don McLean, Tapestry. iii FOREWORD The work described in this dissertation is neither ground breaking nor earth shaking, it merely represents the efforts of a man with limited intellect and ability to solve a problem which sorely needs a solution. There are no pretensions towards disseminating some fundamental scientific truth. Based on a new reaction, a new analytical method has been developed to determine aqueous and airborne sulfate at levels not conveniently determinable previously and a few new compounds have been synthesized and characterized. As the computer scientist would say, the program is different and better, but neither the hardware nor the language i s new. The scope of this work is almost entirely environmental. Environmental chemistry is a relatively new subject, at least as far as most chemists are concerned, and this author has had to educate himself on this subject largely on his own. The study of the environment is multi-faceted; physics of the atmosphere, chemistry of trace substances in our air and water, toxicology at trace levels, health related epidemiological studies - these subjects are all intimately related. In the concerted effort the chemist's role is not any less important than that of anyone else. After all the supreme harmony is in complete interdependence. A great amount of time and effort has been spent to prepare the first part of the dissertation in which the nature of the problem is described. Extensive references that cover all the salient points have been given; some historical references have been given iv along with the scientific ones but the list of references Is not an exhaustive one except In Chapter V, where every effort has been made to cover In understandable detail, all the methods that are currently used to determine airborne sulfuric acid and sulfates. At the end of the reference section a bar graph depicts the frequency of the literature cited in this dissertation vs. the year of publication; if it does nothing else, this would serve to indicate mankind's increasing interest in the science of the environment. The effort to write such a detailed introductory part stems simply from the feeling that at the present time if there is any purpose in writing dissertations beyond binding an identical copy of the manuscript/s sent to journals between some other typed sheets, it must justify itself. This feeling does not imply that the experimental section does not take precedence. This is a disserta tion in analytical chemistry. And chemistry is an experimental sc ie n c e . The author wishes to acknowledge the man who made him truly understand that chemistry is still an experimental science. To paraphrase Dylan, the author gratefully acknowledges the very humane scientist Philip W. West because —- "He said, I 'll give you a shelter from the storm." He gave the author a chance to work independently on a challenging problem and offered help and sugges tions whenever it was needed. And above all, he irrevocably and undefinably touched the molding of the author's thought process. It is true that we pay a price for everything we do. The impact of Industrialization on the environment would never be a rectified positive wave. We should be ready to pay the price for necessary progress but the word progress sometimes Is difficult to d e fin e . A latest best-selling self-heating shave cream bears the following list of ingredients: water, stearic acid, trlethanolamlne, 1,5-diethyl-lt-hydroxy-2-mercapto-6-oxopyrimidine, isobutane, Laureth-23, potassium hydroxide, sorbitol, hydrogen peroxide, sodium lauryl sarcosinate, propane, fragrance, lauratnine oxide, potassium silicate, butane, ammonium molybdate, phenacetin, and sodium stannate. Even if a shaving cream that heats itself can be considered necessary progress, does anyone know what price he is really paying? The help, advice and the suggestions of many people made this work possible. Drs. K„ D. Reiszner and G. L. Lundquist were invaluable. The comradeship of D. L. McDermott and earlier, H. F. Merrick in the laboratory has been a great experience. Dr. W. D. P itts took the enormous trouble of reading and correcting the entire dissertation in its handwritten (hieroglyphic) form. The same magical reading ability was displayed by Betty Stubbs who managed to type it. There are few people in the Chemistry Department whom this author did not bother with his problems during one or another facet of this work. First, the help of Drs. G. R. Newkome and A. Nayak in structural studies must be cited. Our resident electronic experts G. H. Sexton and especially L. S. Edelen willingly provided their v i expertise whenever asked. Our talented computer programmer Alex Nicolson bore the main burden of formulation and execution of the computer programs used in this study. L. G. P. Hanley Jr. was of inestimable help in rechecking and gathering substantial amounts of reported data. S. Bhattacharya and G. Gor made possible the digitization of the data necessary for the first 3-D plot that involved some 2600 points. The author would also like to thank the Library personnel, especially Mrs. B. Brown, who went to a great amount of trouble to hunt obscure material. Further acknow ledgements for specific experimental help have been mentioned in the opening chapter of the experimental section. The author wishes to acknowledge his debt to the Department of Chemistry for granting a teaching assistantship which made his pursuit of a doctoral degree possible in the first place and also to the Coates Memorial Fund which bore a part of the cost of prepa ration of this dissertation.