Marine inorganic photochemistry, as one of the important branches of marine chemistry, is significantly connected with marine biology, marine ecology, marine geochemistry and marine environment, and plays an important role in the development of marine sciences. To date, lots of investigations in the field have been conducted home and abroad. As for the following development of marine inorganic photochemistry, it is greatly of significance to summarize these research works. This paper detailedly summarizes the present research progress in the photochemistry of Fe, Mn and Cu, with an emphasis on investigations on photochemical processes which could affect existing forms of these metal elements in seawater. The problems and shortcomings in the study field are pointed out and some suggestions for the future study are put forward.
Photochemical degradation of crude oil in seawater is an important issue in marine environ- mental protection and is studied in this work. Results showed that petroleum hydrocarbons could be ef- fectively degraded by the irradiation of high-pressure mercury light or natural sunlight. Photochemical reaction was controlled by various factors including light source, aquatic medium, heavy metal ion and photo-sensitizer. The rate of photo-degradation was fast at the initial stage of exposure, exhibiting a first-order reaction kinetic behavior. However, after irradiation for a few hours, the concentration of wa- ter-soluble fraction (WSF) of petroleum hydrocarbons stabilized. For all experimental conditions, the range of the photo-degradation rate is from 0.001 3 to 0.005 7/min.
