Toxicology and Biological Monitoring of Metals

Abstract

There are 67 elements classified as metals and the present chapter presents a review of the toxicology and evidence for useful biological monitoring of 29 of these elements and their various chemical compounds. Introductory sections of the chapter deals with general aspects of metal toxicology. Emphasis is given to the fundamental importance of speciation of metals. The chemical species is defined as the specific form of an element defined as to isotopic composition, electronic or oxidation state and /or complex or molecular structure. Consideration of specific chemical species is of fundamental importance in toxicology and biological monitoring. Advances in chemical analytical methods has made it possible in recent years to use biological monitoring i.e., repeated measurements of metallic compounds in tissues or biological fluids in order to evaluate occupational or environmental exposures and health risks. For all the elements dealt with in this chapter the importance of chemical species is considered when reviewing the uptake, metabolism and excretion; toxic effects and dose‐response relationships; carcinogenicity; genotoxicity as well as biological monitoring. The following metals and their compounds are covered in the present chapter: Aluminium, Antimony, Arsenic, Barium, Beryllium, Bismuth, Cadmium, Chromium, Cobalt, Copper, Gallium and Semiconductor compounds, Germanium, Indium, Iron, Lead, Manganese, Mercury, Molybdenum, Nickel, Palladium, Platinum, Selenium, Silver, Tellurium, Thallium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten and Zinc.

Trace metal imaging in diagnostic of hepatic metal disease

“…Aluminum (Al) is the most widely used non‐ferrous metal in daily life. Although it is a remarkably non‐toxic element (Llobet et al, ; Nordberg & Nordberg, ), environmental release, its high abundance, medical exposure, excessive dietary intake, contaminated drinking water are factors that may cause unwanted high intake of Al (Becaria et al, ). There are a wide variety of human diseases which have been linked to Al exposure including diseases of the bones, muscles, gastrointestinal tract, and brain (Exley, ).…”

Extraction of Zinc Metal ions from Aqueous Solution Using Ionic Liquids

“…Heavy metal pollution is considered to be more damaging than other sorts of water pollution as it causes serious ill effects because due to high degree of toxicity (Tian et al, 2019) (Li & Trost, 2008). Therefore, the decontamination of wastewater is an area of enormous focus in the field of environmental waste and pollution control (Nordberg & Nordberg, 2009). Heavy metals elimination by traditional processes for industrial aqueous effluents includes electrolysis, ion exchange, chemical precipitation, solvent extraction, membrane separation, coagulation and adsorption (Blais et al, 1999) (Fu & Wang, 2011).…”