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Emerging Environmental Contaminants: What’s New
Citation:
RICHARDSON, S. D. Emerging Environmental Contaminants: What’s New. Presented at 57th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry, Philadelphia, PA, May 31 - June 04, 2009.
Impact/Purpose:
Characterize risks associated with drinking water sources; treatment; distribution; and use.
Description:
Much has been achieved in the way of environmental protection over the last 30 years. However, as we learn more, new concerns arise; for example, potential adverse health effects (e.g., cancer, reproductive and developmental effects, and endocrine disruption), bioaccumulation, and widespread distribution. This presentation will discuss emerging environmental contaminants that are currently of concern to the U.S. EPA and to other agencies, and will focus on the use of mass spectrometry for their measurement and identification. Mass spectrometry remains a key analytical tool both for measuring these emerging environmental contaminants at low environmental levels (often at low or sub-ng/L) and for identifying new environmental contaminants not previously known. Liquid chromatography (LC)/electrospray ionization (ESI)-mass spectrometry (MS) is used to measure polar contaminants because most of them are polar and require the use of LC/MS and LC/MS/MS. Gas chromatography (GC)/MS is also still used to measure less polar contaminants and some polar ones (using derivatization), and it continues to be an important technique for identifying new contaminants, particularly through the use of high resolution-MS. Increasingly, high resolution is also being used with LC/MS/MS, mostly through the use of time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometers and quadrupole-TOF mass spectrometers to distinguish between ions of the same nominal mass that can coelute in complex environmental samples.