Determination of traces of copper and zinc in honeys by the solid phase extraction pre-concentration followed by the flame atomic absorption spectrometry detection

A simple and fast solid phase extraction procedure was developed to pre-concentrate traces of Cu and Zn prior to their determination in honey samples by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The sample preparation included dissolution of honey samples and the passage (at 20 ml/min) of resulting 10 % m/v solutions (100 ml) through Dowex 50W?×?8-400 resin beds in order to quantitatively retain Cu and Zn and separate them from the glucose and fructose matrix. Enriched Cu and Zn traces were recovered with 5.0 ml of a 3.0 mol/l HCl solution and quantified by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The procedure proposed was used to analyze sixty nine commercially available and freshly ripened honey samples coming from the Lower Silesia region (Poland). It enabled to measure Cu and Zn within the range of 0.01–1.42 and 0.03–15.38 μg/g, respectively, with precision better than 4 %. Accuracy, assessed on the basis of the recovery test and the comparison of results with those obtained using wet digestion and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, was ranged from ?4 % to +6 %. Detection limits of Cu and Zn achieved with this method were 5 and 7 ng/g, respectively.     

Pyrolysis of polyolefins for increasing the yield of monomers' recovery

Pyrolysis of plastic waste is an alternative way of plastic recovery and could be a potential solution for the increasing stream of solid waste. The objective of this work was to increase the yield the gaseous olefins (monomers) as feedstock for polymerization process and to test the applicability of a commercial Ziegler-Natta (Z-N): TiCl(4)/MgCl(2) for cracking a mixture of polyolefins consisted of 46%wt. of low density polyethylene (LDPE), 30%wt. of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and 24%wt. of polypropylene (PP). Two sets of experiments have been carried out at 500 and 650°C via catalytic pyrolysis (1% of Z-N catalyst) and at 650 and 730°C via only-thermal pyrolysis. These experiments have been conducted in a lab-scale, fluidized quartz-bed reactor of a capacity of 1-3kg/h at Hamburg University. The results revealed a strong influence of temperature and presence of catalyst on the product distribution. The ratios of gas/liquid/solid mass fractions via thermal pyrolysis were: 36.9/48.4/15.7%wt. and 42.4/44.7/13.9%wt. at 650 and 730°C while via catalytic pyrolysis were: 6.5/89.0/4.5%wt. and 54.3/41.9/3.8%wt. at 500 and 650°C, respectively. At 650°C the monomer generation increased by 55% up to 23.6%wt. of total pyrolysis products distribution while the catalyst was added. Obtained yields of olefins were compared with the naphtha steam cracking process and other potentially attractive processes for feedstock generation. The concept of closed cycle material flow for polyolefins has been discussed, showing the potential benefits of feedstock recycling in a plastic waste management.