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U.S. Department of Energy
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Methodology for determining dose-response toxicity models incorporating the effects of chemical speciation

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:5237813
Scientist and regulators concerned with the relationship between the aqueous speciation of a metal and the metal's toxicity to aquatic organisms have been hampered by the inability to quantify this relationship when the activities of the chemical species are highly collinear and the toxicity data sets are underdetermined. In this study, new methodology is developed that can quantify this relationship between the thermodynamic activities of the chemical species of a potentially toxic metal and a given toxicity measure for an organism without making a priori decisions regarding which of the aqueous species to include in the analysis. The approach consists of first computing the aqueous speciation of the metal using the MINTEQ geochemical model with a thoroughly reviewed and partially-validated thermodynamic data base. Then, advanced statistical methods, determined to be stable when applied to collinear data and underdetermined systems, are applied to the thermodynamic activities of the metal species and the toxicity measure to determine and to quantify the relationship between the sepciation and the toxicity. Copper was used as the test metal.
Research Organization:
Washington Univ., Seattle (USA)
OSTI ID:
5237813
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English