Studying radiolytic ageing of nuclear power plant electric cables with FTIR spectroscopy.

Due to the willingness to extend the nuclear power plants length of life, it is of prime importance to understand long term ageing effect on all constitutive materials. For this purpose gamma-irradiation effects on insulation of instrumentation and control cables are studied. Mid-infrared spectroscopy and principal components analysis (PCA) were used to highlight molecular modifications induced by gamma-irradiation under oxidizing conditions.

Acute aquatic toxicity of organic solvents modeled by QSARs.

To limit in vivo experiments, the use of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) is advocated by REACH regulation to predict the required fish, invertebrate, and algae EC50 for chemical registration. The aim of this work was to develop reliable QSARs in order to model both invertebrate and algae EC50 for organic solvents, regardless of the mechanism of toxic action involved. EC50 represents the concentration producing the 50 % immobilization of invertebrates or the 50 % growth inhibition of algae.

Quantitative structure-activity relationship to predict acute fish toxicity of organic solvents.

REACH regulation requires ecotoxicological data to characterize industrial chemicals. To limit in vivo testing, Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs) are advocated to predict toxicity of a molecule. In this context, the topic of this work was to develop a reliable QSAR explaining the experimental acute toxicity of organic solvents for fish trophic level.

Hydrophobicity of ionisable compounds studied by countercurrent chromatography.

Countercurrent chromatography (CCC) is a liquid chromatography technique in which the stationary phase is also a liquid. The main chemical process involved in solute separation is partitioning between the two immiscible liquid phases: the mobile phase and the support-free liquid stationary phase. The octanol-water partition coefficients (P(o/w)) is the accepted parameter measuring the hydrophobicity of molecules.