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IDENTIFYING COMPOUNDS DESPITE CHROMATOGRAPHY LIMITATIONS: ORGANOPHOSPHATES IN TREATED SEWAGE
Citation:
Grange, A H., L I. Osemwengie, AND G W. Sovocool. IDENTIFYING COMPOUNDS DESPITE CHROMATOGRAPHY LIMITATIONS: ORGANOPHOSPHATES IN TREATED SEWAGE. LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY/GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY 21(11):1062-1076, (2003).
Impact/Purpose:
Provide state-of-the-science sampling, analysis, separation, and detection methods to allow rapid, accurate field and laboratory analyses of contaminated soils, sediments, biota, and groundwater to support Superfund clean-up decisions. Apply state-of-the-science methods in chemical analysis and data interpretation (e.g., mass spectral interpretation) to actual problems of OSWER, the Regions, and the States, in cooperation with the Las Vegas Technical Support Center as well as by direct contacts with Regional and State employees. Provide technical advice and guidance to OSWER using the environmental chemistry expertise (e.g., mass spectrometry, analytical methods development, clean-up methodology, inorganics, organometallics, volatile organics, non-volatile organics, semi-volatile organics, separation technologies, etc.) found within the branch.
Technical research support for various projects initiated either by Regions/Program Offices or ECB scientists. While these efforts will support the Regions and Program Offices, they cannot be predicted or planned in advance, and may serve multiple duty (e.g., solve real-world problems, serve to ground-truth analytical approaches that ECB is developing, transfer new technology). Many of the activities in this task support requests involving enforcement decisions and therefore are categorized as "environmental forensics".
Description:
Highly concentrated extracts of sewage treatment plant (STP) effluents contain detectable
levels of dozens of compounds resulting from human activities. Recent concern over use and
disposal of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPS) (1) has stimulated interest in
detecting, identifying, and quantifying these and related compounds, in determining their
toxicities, and in assessing the risks they pose to ecosystems and to humans. For any compounds posing such risks, their sources, degradation rates, and degradation products must also be investigated before remediation strategies are developed Gas chromatographic separation in time coupled to mass spectrometric selection by mass (GC/MS) provides the most effective analytical method for identifying trace and ultra-trace levels of analytes in complex extracts that elute or coelute from a GC column, When coelution occurs, MS provides distinct patterns of ion abundances from each compound, which can be correlated with the individual compounds. By contrast, FTIR and NMR require larger amounts than MS of well-separated compounds for analyses. Rather than devise techniques to isolate and concentrate coeluting compounds prior to analysis by other analytical techniques, we have developed a high resolution mass spectrometric technique to identify compounds in complex environmental extracts based on GC/MS data alone.