Jacques Bersier

Electrochemistry for a better environment

To many, pollution is how the environment pays for industrial inefficiency, motorized transportation, waste consumption, and some agricultural practices. For the (chemical) industry “the solution to pollution is dilution” is not acceptable any more. The musts for the chemical industry and other industries in the 1990s and beyond are: (i) avoidance, minimization of wastes and (ii) waste elimination. Electrochemistry — which uses a mass-free reagent and often does not need additional chemicals and, on scale-up, produces more acceptable wastes — is inherently an environmentally friendly technology. Thus preparative electrochemistry in the preventive mode (zero effluent technology = electrosynthesis) and curative mode (waste treatment: elimination, recycling, recovery of pollutants) offers unique solutions to the problems of industry. Examples from the laboratory, pilot plant and full-size commercial operation highlight the state-of-the-art, the scope and limitations and the pros and cons of advanced preparative eectrochemistry in the synthesis of inorganic and organic species (preventive mode) and the elimination, recovery and recycling of inorganic pollutants and the destruction of organic pollutants (curative mode). Electrochemical recovery and recycling (e.g. of metals, salt splitting) become a raw material credit.

Polarography, voltammetry and tensammetry: tools for day-to-day analysis in the industrial laboratory

Selected practical inorganic and organic applications of modern polarography, voltammetry and tensammetry to real problems from fields as diverse as high technology (stereolithography), organic synthesis and environmental protection and environmental analysis serve to illustrate the vast area of application of these techniques in the industrial and technical laboratory.

Applied Polarography and Voltammetry of Organic Compounds in Pratical Day-To-Day Analysis Part II

In organic chemistry, polarography and voltammetry are most frequently applied for the solution of (1) practical, mainly analytical, problems. To show the scope and possibilities of these techniques in the analysis of dyes, agricultrual products, plastics, and pharmaceutical materials we shall briefly, and in a nonexhaustive way, discuss some practical examples. Polarography can also be used for (2) the solution of electrochemical problems, and (3) to provide useful information on fundamental problems of organic chemistry such as determination of equilibrium constants, and rate constants for fast (t,1/2 <0.5 sec) and slow (T,1/2 < 10 sec) reactions, detection of intermediates, etc. The reproducibility of polarographic measurements (about 3%) allows obtaining of kinetic data with a precision comparable to that of most other methods used in reactions kinetics. Because applications of the types (2) and (3) have been covered in sufficient detail elsewhere,136, 195, 345, 346 we shall restrict our discussion to...

Applied Polarography and Voltammetry in Day-to-Day Environmental Analysis, Possibilities and Limitations

”The natural resources of the earth including the air, water, land, flora and fauna and especially representative samples of natural ecosystems must be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations through careful planning or management, as appropriate”.1