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The Flame Research Project: Introduction and Methods

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Abstract

The FLAME (FLy-Ash and Metals in Europe: Implications for human and environmental health) research project funded by the EU COPERNICUS programme ran from 1994 to 1996. The main aims of the programme were to further develop an automated chemical characterisation to discriminate between fly-ash particles from the major fossil-fuels used throughout Europe (coal, oil, peat, brown coal and oil shale) and apply this to particles extracted from lake sediments taken from the four participating countries (Estonia, Czech Republic, Ireland and U.K.) in order to determine spatial distributions of deposited particulates from large combustion sources. In combination with trace metal analyses from lake surface sediments and catchment mosses, the fly-ash particle data were able to identify areas of elevated pollutant deposition and suggest potential sources for them. Given the transboundary nature of the pollutants, the techniques and results of FLAME are of relevance throughout Europe. Other papers in this volume describe results and interpretation. This paper describes the background and aims of the FLAME project, outlines the methods employed for sampling sediments and mosses and the analytical techniques for particle enumeration and trace metal analysis for sediments and mosses. Finally brief details of the particle characterisation are given showing how a hierarchical discriminant function was developed, based on energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) derived particle chemistry which correctly allocated particles from the five fuel-types with 80% accuracy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, U.K

    N.L. Rose & S. Harlock

  2. Institute of Ecology, Estonian Academy of Science, Kevade Str. 2, Tallinn, Estonia

    T. Alliksaar & J-M. Punning

  3. Environmental Protection Agency, Pottery Road, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin, Republic of Ireland

    J.J. Bowman

  4. Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, P.O. Box 147, Liverpool, L69 3BX, U.K

    J. Boyle

  5. Department of Geology, Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, Centre for Environmental Technology, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2BP, U.K

    B. Coles, K. St. Clair-Gribble & J. Watt

  6. Department of Hydrobiology, Charles University, Vinicna 7, 12844, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    J. Fott & J. Vukic

  7. Department of Geography, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, U.K

    S. Juggins

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  1. N.L. Rose
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  2. T. Alliksaar
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  3. J.J. Bowman
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  4. J. Boyle
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  9. J-M. Punning
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  11. J. Vukic
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  12. J. Watt
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Rose, N., Alliksaar, T., Bowman, J. et al. The Flame Research Project: Introduction and Methods. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution 106, 205–218 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005008427122

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