Comprehensive Analysis of Highly Polar Contaminants in Drinking Water

考虑到目前商业使用的约85，000种化学品，甚至还有更多目前未识别的天然成分和水中的消毒副产物，很难评估水生环境中化学污染的环境影响。饮用水是一种特别复杂的天然和人为化学物质的混合物。在过去的四十年中，已经确定了数千种新的饮用水污染物，并对有害污染物进行了监管，但目前尚未确定的物种可能对环境和人类健康构成威胁或有益。我们对饮用水的化学污染的认识的主要差距与高极性污染物有关，这些污染物代表水消毒处理或微生物活动产生的溶解有机物的分解产物。识别和调查饮用水中这些新出现的污染物是我们提出的NSERC资助的研究计划的目标。为此，我们将使用基于电喷雾离子化、超高效液相色谱、微分离子迁移率（FAIMS）和质谱技术相结合的强大分析方法。这些新技术，最近在我们的研究中开发的，能够分离，检测和识别新兴的（以前未知的）饮用水污染物在一个快速和方便的方式，而不需要昂贵的样品制备方案。利用这些独特的分析能力，我们将能够调查各种消毒处理前后来自地面和地表水源的各种饮用水样本（氯化、臭氧化、氯胺化或紫外线辐射），提供关于其形成、发生、转归和新的饮用水污染物的环境影响，这是以前无法研究的传统技术在水分析。

It is difficult to evaluate an environmental impact of chemical contamination in aquatic environments considering ~85,000 chemicals in commercial use today and even a larger group of currently unidentified natural components and disinfection by-products in water. Drinking water is an especially complex mixture of naturally occurring and anthropogenic chemicals. Over the past four decades, thousands of new drinking water contaminants have been identified and hazardous pollutants are regulated, but currently unidentified species may pose threats or be beneficial to the environment and human health. The major gap in our knowledge about the chemical contamination of drinking water is related to highly polar contaminants representing decomposition products of dissolved organic matter from water disinfection treatments or from microbial activities. The identification and investigation of these emerging pollutants in drinking water is the objective of our proposed NSERC-funded research program. For this purpose, we will use powerful analytical methods based on combining the technologies of Electrospray Ionization, Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Differential Ion Mobility (FAIMS) and Mass Spectrometry. These novel techniques, developed recently in our research, are capable of separating, detecting and identifying emerging (previously unknown) drinking water pollutants in a quick and convenient fashion without a need for costly sample preparation protocols. Using these unique analytical capabilities, we will be able to investigate a wide range of drinking water samples from ground and surface sources before and after various disinfection treatments (chlorination, ozonation, chloramination or UV radiation) to provide the comprehensive information on formation, occurrence, fate, and environmental impact of novel drinking water contaminants which could not be previously studied by conventional techniques in water analysis.