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A report is made on a method of sampling and analysis of biphenyl and 2-phenylphenol which are present in the environmental air of the dyeing plant rooms of the textile industry. The sampling is carried out by filtering environmental air through small pipes containing two layers of Porapak Q 80-100 mesh, the first one of 150 mg for the analysis and the other, of 50 mg, for the control, with a flux of about 1 l/min. The report includes the description of some tests concerning shifting and displacement with various fluxes, as well as the recovery of known quantities and the stability of the sampling. The saturation for the mixture of the two pollutants was about 130 mg/g of biphenyl and more than 100 mg/g of 2-phenylphenol. The gaschromatographic analysis was carried out on 2 ml of cyclohexane; methylacetate 80:20 by which was obtained the absorbent used for the sampling. An analytical column was used with 3% Apiezon L, 1% phosphoric acid, 2% Carbowax 20 M on Chromosorb W HP 80-100 mesh. These results were also confirmed by other two reference columns. This method was applied successfully to the analysis of the air of the work environment under examination.

The mercury control in the chloroalkali plants is a "routine method". The air is above all sampled in the chloroalkali electrolysis rooms and in the rooms under them. Already in a previous paper we had pointed out a method for the sampling and determination of the metallic mercury in these work rooms. Atmospheric samples are passed through a small glass tube containing fine spongy particles of metallic gold. As far as particle mercury sampling and analysis are concerned, environmental air is filtered by micropore filters placed on the top of the small tube filled with the gold sponge (on the same sampling line). The present work has been made with the purpose of verifying the percentage of metallic and particle mercury of the chloroalkali plants and nearby the industrial perimeter of these plants. The results have been obtained from data of two plants with different capacity, different topographic location and different microclimatic conditions. It has been noticed that the air concentration of mercury in the surrounds of the plants is higher than the basal values in incontaminated areas and the ratio between metallic mercury and particle mercury in the surroundings of chloroalkali plants is casual. The obtained data have been explained at the light of the microclimatic observations and exactly: speed and direction of winds, temperature, humidity and rainy precipitations.

In outdoor factory environments many defiling substances are produced by different working processes. Reclamation operations must, therefore, be directed to the single types of pollution involved. A series of corrective operations, aiming at the elimination of fumes, frinding powders, solvent vapours, paint pigments and hydrocarbon vapours, are described.

Particulates of antimony present in area of plants producing a catalyst containing iron an antimony have been determined. The environmental aereosol, filtered through micropore filters, is analyzed in the form of stabilized aqueous suspension by atomic adsorption flameless graphite furnace. The limit of air revealability permitted by the method is 0.2 mcg/m3. With the above mentioned revealability limit it is possible to perform very rapid drawings of environmental air, so that noxiouslity of even very short-time processing can be controlled.

A survey is presented of the applicability of atomic spectrometry and other techniques for the quantitation of both inorganic and organic arsenic in biological fluids. Pretreatment of samples and speciation of the different As forms are particularly emphasized. The potential of inductively-coupled plasma spectrometry combined with high performance liquid chromatography separations is also highlighted.