Seminar
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
11 am, March 20th at BBC MSB-105
Contaminants of Emerging Concern:
New developments in analysis and environmental understanding
Edward T. Furlong, Ph.D.
National Water Quality Laboratory and Toxic Substances Hydrology Program
U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado
For the last 15 years, the concept of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) has
gained substantial interest from the scientific community and in the popular press. These
CECs, which include pharmaceuticals, personal-care products, surfactants,
perfluorinated compounds, and many other chemical classes, are a heterogeneous array
of contaminants typified by having diverse anthropogenc sources, being present at subppb environmental concentrations, and often demonstrating substantial sublethal effects
in aquatic biota.
Advances in analytical chemistry, particularly in the development of liquid
chromatograpy/mass spectrometry (LC/MS), are responsible for the ability to accurately
and reliably determine many CECs at low parts-per-trillion and lower concentrations,
expanding the range of identifiable CECs and the types and numbers of samples that
can be collected. These improvements have led to new understanding of processes
controlling transport and transformation of CECs in surface water, groundwater, and
biota. This presentation will describe how the use of advanced LC/MS instrumentation
in several recent studies of pharmaceuticals and other CECs has lead to new insights
into their presence, distribution, transformation, and fate in stream systems, source and
treated drinking water, and biota.
Field Site Map from: Bradley et al., 2014, Riverbank filtration potential of
pharmaceuticals in a wastewater-impacted stream, Environmental Pollution v.193 p.
173–180.