Identify and Quantify Trace Contaminants in Drinking Water and its Sources

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In Canada, public demand for high quality water and stringent regulations are the main drivers for the investigation of alternatives to conventional treatment processes. The requested equipment (a gas chromatograph with mass spectrometer detector, GC/MS) will replace a well used but obsolete instrument. As such, it will ensure the timely continuation of research regarding advanced and emerging technologies to minimize the concentrations of existing and emerging contaminants in drinking water. In doing so, it will support the interdisciplinary training of more than 30 HQP in 5 research groups, the output of which will be of significant benefit to the health and wellbeing of Canadians.  The detection of a wide variety of anthropogenic contaminants in source (lakes, rivers) and treated drinking water in various parts of the world has increased the concern for their potential adverse ecological and human impacts. In recent years, the public has also gained an increasing awareness that micropollutants exist, for example ones that cause taste and odour in drinking water. This motivation has led to a demand for newer treatment processes that include the use of ultrafiltration membranes, biofiltration, and/or advanced oxidation processes to significantly improve the removal of micropollutants from drinking water. In contrast, some recently employed treatment technologies have been observed to react with micropollutants, such as pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), to form human carcinogens, including N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). As such, there exists a resurgence in interest regarding the formation of potentially toxic disinfection byproducts with an aim to minimize or ultimately eliminate them from drinking water that reaches consumers. This represents a major focus of the Drinking Water Research Group led by three co-investigators of this proposal (Profs. R. Andrews, R. Hofmann, and S. Andrews).  Groundwater represents a key source of drinking water in many parts of the world and, unfortunately, much has been contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals due to anthropogenic activities. Profs. B. Sleep and E. Passeport conduct research that focuses on the remediation of groundwater and soil in order to develop an understanding of organic contaminant transfer and transformation mechanisms. Their research informs how to best design and operate environmental remediation strategies.  To help ensure effective detection and identification of contaminants in our water resources and allow advanced water treatment systems to be appropriately evaluated, the requested equipment must be acquired such that the researchers can continue to identify and quantify contaminants. This will ensure that mitigation strategies leading to their reduction may be accurately evaluated.