Presenter/Author Information

Kristina Voigt
Hagen Scherb
Rainer Brüggemann

Keywords

sustainable chemistry, persistent organic pollutants, hasse diagram technique, environmetrics, chemometrics

Start Date

1-7-2010 12:00 AM

Abstract

It has been evident for decades that environmental chemicals pose an enormousrisk to the environment as well as to humans. However, this important topic is stillunderestimated in every part of society. The effects of environmental contaminants onhealth are a major concern because exposure is associated with a number of diseases,including cancer, diabetes, congenital malformations and infertility. Sustainable Chemistryis a chemical philosophy encouraging the design of products and processes that reduce oreliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Sustainability and sustainabledevelopment are effectively ethical concepts, expressing desirable outcomes fromeconomic and social decisions. The important matter of principle, therefore, becomes avictim of the desire to set targets and measure progress. In this respect, metrical scientificdisciplines like Chemometrics, Environmetrics, Biometrics, Chemoinformatics,Environmental Informatics, etc. are of great importance. The environmetrical data-analysismethod applied in this paper is the method of partially ordered sets. Partial order is adiscipline of Discrete Mathematics and one may consider partial order as an example ofmathematics without numerical arithmetic. The graphical representation of partial orders islaid down in so-called Hasse diagrams. We present the occurrence of Persistent OrganicPollutants (POPs) in breast milk samples. It can be concluded that bioaccumulativechemicals pose a danger to both humans and the environment and that hence much effortshould be laid on the development of safer, that is to say biodegradable, chemicals in thefuture.

COinS
 
Jul 1st, 12:00 AM

Theoretical Environmental Disciplines in Support of Sustainable Chemistry

It has been evident for decades that environmental chemicals pose an enormousrisk to the environment as well as to humans. However, this important topic is stillunderestimated in every part of society. The effects of environmental contaminants onhealth are a major concern because exposure is associated with a number of diseases,including cancer, diabetes, congenital malformations and infertility. Sustainable Chemistryis a chemical philosophy encouraging the design of products and processes that reduce oreliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Sustainability and sustainabledevelopment are effectively ethical concepts, expressing desirable outcomes fromeconomic and social decisions. The important matter of principle, therefore, becomes avictim of the desire to set targets and measure progress. In this respect, metrical scientificdisciplines like Chemometrics, Environmetrics, Biometrics, Chemoinformatics,Environmental Informatics, etc. are of great importance. The environmetrical data-analysismethod applied in this paper is the method of partially ordered sets. Partial order is adiscipline of Discrete Mathematics and one may consider partial order as an example ofmathematics without numerical arithmetic. The graphical representation of partial orders islaid down in so-called Hasse diagrams. We present the occurrence of Persistent OrganicPollutants (POPs) in breast milk samples. It can be concluded that bioaccumulativechemicals pose a danger to both humans and the environment and that hence much effortshould be laid on the development of safer, that is to say biodegradable, chemicals in thefuture.