Environmental context. Chronic ingestion of arsenic leads to its accumulation in keratinous tissues, which can represent a risk factor for developing cancer. We use synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy to investigate chemical bonding of arsenic in the keratins from nail clippings of volunteers from areas in Atlantic Canada with low-to-moderate arsenic contamination of drinking water. The study helps our understanding of arsenic metabolism and its role in cancer development.

Environmental context. Long-term exposure to fine particle air pollution has significant implications for human health. At a mixed urban–industrial site in Newcastle, Australia, we identified contributions from individual industrial aerosol sources in addition to the more common aerosol sources such as soil, sea and smoke. These results are significant for the assessment and management of fine particulate air pollution in the Newcastle air shed.

Environmental context. Soils contaminated with metals can pose both environmental and human health risks. This study showed that a common crop vegetable grown in the presence of cadmium and zinc readily accumulated these metals, and thus could be a source of toxicity when eaten. The work highlights potential health risks from consuming crops grown on contaminated soils.

Environmental context. Conventional sample pretreatment for the determination of pesticides in environmental samples is time consuming and labour intensive. We report two dispersive liquid–liquid micro-extraction methods that provide rapid homogeneous emulsification in aqueous samples within 2 min. These simple and environmentally friendly extraction methods are particularly suitable for the measurement of organophosphorus pesticides in field water.

Environmental context. Water-soluble dicarboxylic acids and related compounds are ubiquitous in atmospheric aerosols. They are abundantly emitted from Asian countries and transported to the Pacific Ocean. During the long-range transport, photochemical processing modifies organic aerosols. We conducted a 1-year observation of diacids and related compounds at Okinawa Island, an outflow region of the Asian Continent, to clarify their sources and photochemical aging.

Environmental context. There is growing concern that lead in the environment may cause adverse health effects in human populations. We investigated the combined use of isotopic abundance and isotopic dilution to show how the origins of soil Pb and soil characteristics affect lability. Soil pH and soil Pb content are the dominant controls on Pb lability; the lability of recent petrol-derived Pb is similar to that of other sources in urban soils but greater than geogenic Pb in rural roadside topsoils.

Environmental context. Emission into the atmosphere of gaseous streams containing sulfur compounds, such as H₂S and SO_x, will lead to the unwanted formation of acid rain. In order to prevent this, biological processes can be employed to treat sulfur-containing gas streams. In this study, we describe a way to investigate the speciation of polysulfide anions in biodesulfurisation systems, which might enable further understanding and development of these processes.

Environmental context. The supramolecular structure and resulting physicochemical properties of soil organic matter (SOM) significantly control storage and buffer functions of soils, e.g. for nutrients, organic molecules and water. Multivalent cations, able to form complexes, are suggested to form inter- and intramolecular cross-links in SOM. At present, specific effects of the valence and type of cation on SOM properties are incompletely understood. We investigated changes in SOM interfacial properties, its ability to release mobile colloids in aqueous solutions and its sorption affinity towards organic chemicals in dependence on cation–SOM interactions, temperature and aging time.