Environmental Chemistry Division

<HOME <about NIES <Outline of the Research

Environmental Chemistry Division

Homepage: http://www.nies.go.jp/chem/index-e.html

This Division is developing analytical techniques for hazardous chemicals such as dioxins and endocrine disruptors, researching approaches for environmental monitoring of these substances as well as analytical quality control, conducting research to clarify the environmental behavior of chemicals, and studying toxicity assessment. In addition, the Division is researching material flows and the flow of elements and isotopes in organisms, ecosystems and the environment; researching to clarify climate and environmental changes using chemical analysis; and applying the findings to computer-based chemical simulations and environmental research.

The Division uses the latest analytical technologies, including various types of mass spectrometry (MS) analysis such as the GC/MS, LC/MS/MS, IRMS, SIMS, MC-ICPMS, and AMS. In addition, the Division conducts research on organic mercury, dioxins and other substances using high precision/high sensitivity measuring equipment for element concentrations, isotope ratios, and concentrations of organic substances. Other research in this Division includes pollution monitoring and determination of the impacts of persistent organic pollutants (POPs); elucidating the environmental behavior of halogenated methanes (ozone-depleting substances); tracking the atmospheric transport of loess (yellow sand) and analysis of dust specimens; analyzing the impacts of acid deposition on minerals; elucidating the environmental behavior of arsenic; and researching long-term environmental changes using sediments from Lake Baikal.

In addition, for quality control in the monitoring of chemical substances, this Division cooperates with the Laboratory of Intellectual Fundamentals for Environmental Studies which is producing environmental certified reference materials and handling long-term storage of environmental samples (specimen bank). Besides this work, the Division participates in research when unexpected environmental problems occur such as large oil spills and a recent nuclear criticality accident.

In addition to this, the Division has studied historical changes in ocean circulation, which greatly affect the global environment, using the AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) for radioactive carbon (carbon 14) research.

Finally, exploiting the fact that fossil fuels such as coal and oil do not contain carbon 14, the Division is conducting research to clarify environmental behavior of chemical substances in the environment, by the use of carbon dating, and by investigating their sources and the relative contribution of fossil fuels.

Older sea water rises in the process of macro-scale ocean circulation, supplying the local sea life (fur seals) food that is lower in carbon 14. As a result, the fur seals show older carbon 14 ages than terrestrial life (deer) living in the same period.

Carbon 14 ages of collagen from animal and human bone unearthed from archaeological sites in Hokkaido.

Carbon 14 ages of collagen from animal and human bone unearthed from archaeological sites in Hokkaido. The time lag of about 800 years between the carbon 14 ages in fur seals compared to deer has been stable for the past several thousand years. This indicates that ocean circulation was relatively stable. Interestingly, the carbon dating of people of the early Jomon period is closer to the fur seals than that of the deer. It is thought that about 80 percent of their protein came from marine life.

to top