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Water, Water Everywhere, But is it Safe to Drink?
Citation:
RICHARDSON, S. D. Water, Water Everywhere, But is it Safe to Drink? Presented at American Chemical Society Awards Presentation, New Orleans, LA, April 06 - 10, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
This research is important to determine what chemical DBPs people are actually exposed to through their drinking water or may be exposed to due to a shift to alternative disinfection technologies, and to understand how they are formed so that they can potentially be minimized.
Description:
Drinking water disinfection by-products (DBPs) have been associated with adverse human health effects, including bladder cancer, early term miscarriage, and birth defects. While it is vitally important to kill harmful pathogens in water, it is also important to minimize harmful chemicals formed. Despite more than 30 years of research on DBPs, it is currently not known which DBPs are responsible for the human health effects. To this end, our research group has used mass spectrometry to uncover more than 300 DBPs that were not previously known. We have also linked with toxicologists to determine which may be responsible for the human health effects observed, and have investigated DBPs formed by alternative disinfectants that are increasing in use. What we currently know, and what we still hope to learn will be presented.