Olfactory Characterisation of Odours for Optimising Impact Assessment. The repeated release of obnoxious odours from intensive livestock, waste management and wastewater treatment facilities can constitute a major air quality problem for a local population. Odour management has traditionally been maintained by the use of buffer distances that have significantly decreased with urban encroachment. Odour assessment is conventionally measured in terms of odour concentration; however this standardise ....Olfactory Characterisation of Odours for Optimising Impact Assessment. The repeated release of obnoxious odours from intensive livestock, waste management and wastewater treatment facilities can constitute a major air quality problem for a local population. Odour management has traditionally been maintained by the use of buffer distances that have significantly decreased with urban encroachment. Odour assessment is conventionally measured in terms of odour concentration; however this standardised method does not take into account odour quality characters or their intensity. The project will characterise by sensory means the odour nuisance types and intensity of different odorous emissions to better define and understand the relationship between process operations and olfactory annoyance.Read moreRead less
Understanding and controlling bioavailability: passive dosing of persistent organic pollutants into recombinant cell bioassays. Bioassays with mammalian cell lines may replace animal testing in chemical risk assessment if issues with limited sensitivity can be overcome for very hydrophobic chemicals such as polychlorinated dibenzodioxins. The project will solve this problem by developing a polymer-release dosing technique that assures defined and constant exposure.
Maximum entropy methods for Bayesian analysis in chemistry. This new approach for analysing chemical data will solve problems in deciding the weight of an atom in a chemical compound, whether an athlete took illegal steroids, if a horse has been fed an illegal 'milkshake' of bicarbonate, and if a methamphetamine tablet seized in a nightclub was made from powder found in a clandestine lab.
Disinfection by-products formed during drinking water treatment: reducing the unknowns is managing risk. Disinfection of drinking water is a successful measure to reduce water-borne diseases and protect health. However, epidemiological evidence links bladder cancer to disinfection by-products formed during drinking water treatment. Despite decades of research the causative agents remain to be identified. To fill this knowledge gap, this project will quantify the fraction of toxicity that cannot ....Disinfection by-products formed during drinking water treatment: reducing the unknowns is managing risk. Disinfection of drinking water is a successful measure to reduce water-borne diseases and protect health. However, epidemiological evidence links bladder cancer to disinfection by-products formed during drinking water treatment. Despite decades of research the causative agents remain to be identified. To fill this knowledge gap, this project will quantify the fraction of toxicity that cannot be explained by known chemicals in water samples treated with different disinfectants using a combination of chemical analysis and in-vitro bioassays. Samples with high unexplained effects will then be fractionated to isolate toxicologically relevant disinfection by-products, which will ultimately be identified with non-target chemical analysis.Read moreRead less