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EMERGING POLLUTANTS, MASS SPECTROMETRY, AND COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: PHARMACEUTICALS IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Citation:
Daughton, C G. EMERGING POLLUTANTS, MASS SPECTROMETRY, AND COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: PHARMACEUTICALS IN THE ENVIRONMENT. Presented at ASMS National Meeting, Chicago, IL, May 27-31, 2001.
Impact/Purpose:
The research focused on in the subtasks is the development and application of state-of the-art technologies to meet the needs of the public, Office of Water, and ORD in the area of Water Quality. Located In the subtasks are the various research projects being performed in support of this Task and more in-depth coverage of each project. Briefly, each project's objective is stated below.
Subtask 1: To integrate state-of-the-art technologies (polar organic chemical integrative samplers, advanced solid-phase extraction methodologies with liquid chromatography/electrospray/mass spectrometry) and apply them to studying the sources and fate of a select list of PPCPs. Application and improvement of analytical methodologies that can detect non-volatile, polar, water-soluble pharmaceuticals in source waters at levels that could be environmentally significant (at concentrations less than parts per billion, ppb). IAG with USGS ends in FY05. APM 20 due in FY05.
Subtask 2: Coordination of interagency research and public outreach activities for PPCPs. Participate on NSTC Health and Environment subcommittee working group on PPCPs. Web site maintenance and expansion, invited technical presentations, invited articles for peer-reviewed journals, interviews for media, responding to public inquiries.
Subtask 3: To apply state-of-the-art environmental forensic techniques to the recognition and characterization of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. There is a need for high sensitivity and for a powerful method of structural characterization, advanced mass spectrometric and chromatographic techniques to be employed to meet the challenge of emerging pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, agents of sabotage, and explosives. Ongoing efforts continue to identify previously unrecognized pollutants from a range of problematic samples having importance to regional and state contacts.
Subtask 4: To provide the Agency with a set of practical analytical methods for the selective and sensitive determination of selenium species (organic, inorganic, volatile and non volatile forms) in multiple media to accurately assess and if necessary control the risk of selenium exposure to organisms. This includes development of optimal extraction, digestion, separation and detection approaches.
Subtask 5: To develop and apply an analytical method that can extract and detect synthetic musks. The extent of exposure may be determined by measuring levels of synthetic musks from their potential source (communal sewage effluent). This subtask ends in FY05 with the deliverable of APM 21. Future applications to biosolids will be covered in subtask 6.
Subtask 6: Application, and improvement, of previously in-house developed sensitive, robust, and green, methodologies regarding the use of urobilin and sterols as a possible markers of sewage contamination.
Subtask 7: Adaptation and improvement of previously developed in-house methods, for PPCPs (e.g., antibiotics and musks) to solid materials (e.g. biosolids, sediments).
Subtask 8: Study of the presence of personal care products, incombustible organic compounds from the direct-piping of small engines exhaust in Lake Tahoe, and lake deposition of airborne pollutants from industrial activity
Description:
Historically fundamental to amassing our understanding of environmental processes and chemical pollution is the realm of mass spectrometry (MS) - the mainstay of analytical
chemistry - the workhorse that supplies definitive data that environmental scientists and engineers reply upon for identifying molecular compositions (and ultimately structures) of chemicals. While the power of MS has long been visible to the practicing environmental chemist, it borders on obscurity to the lay public and many scientists. While MS has played a long,
historic (and largely invisible) role in establishing our knowledge of environmental processes and pollution, what recognition it does enjoy is usually relegated to that of a tool. It is usually the relevance or significance of the knowledge acquired from the application of the tool that has ultimate meaning to the public and science at large - not how the data were acquired.
Methods (736/800):
Mass Spectrometry and the "Risk Paradigm": The process of protecting human and ecological health from chemical hazards is rooted in assessing and controlling chemical risks - a process comprising many interrelated steps (e.g., environmental occurrence, fate and transport, establishing exposure, effects markers, identifying sources, developing remediation/control technology). Mass spectrometry plays a critical, direct role in all of them (except the actual step of assessing risk). Mass spectrometry is essential to collecting environment occurrence data (identities and concentrations), establishing fate and transport, exposure (including measurement of biomarkers), effects (including receptor interactions and metabolites), and finally, measuring the effectiveness of mitigation, mediation, and engineered treatment measures and technologies.
Preliminary data (1995/2000):
Communicating Science: Often absent in the scientist's quest to advance our understanding of the chemical world is a concerted effort to explain to non-specialists the importance of analytical tools - their unique abilities and what they can do. An imperative in the future health of a scientific discipline is the "marketing" of its worth and ensuring that it has a measurable impact - or OUTCOME. Historically, the value of environmental chemistry has focused on establishing a fundamental understanding of environmental principles. A re-focus on elucidating "emerging" issues (proactive vs. reactive science) can improve the visibility of mass spectrometry. This presentation discusses the co-issues of emerging pollutants and communicating our science by using as an example the still-developing topic of pharmaceuticals as environmental contaminants.