Environmental Monitoring using Fibre-optics by Microextraction and Chromatography with optical detection

随着人类活动对环境系统造成越来越大的压力，对各种污染物的环境监测变得越来越重要。水质尤其令人关切，影响饮用水或水源的污染事件越来越多就是明证。目前，监测很少，而且费用昂贵，而且严重缺乏对污染趋势的了解，甚至在饮用水中也是如此。在加拿大，饮用水的微生物污染物只在工厂每天监测一次，化学污染物每三个月检查一次。我的研究计划旨在检测各种样品类型中的有机分子，其中分子有时是令人担忧的污染物，在其他应用中是污染的次要指标。我们正在检测各种有机分析物，重点是多环芳烃(PAHs)，但所有项目都使用了一套核心的分析技术和原理。大多数有机化合物分析方法的一个基本步骤是使用“分配”或“提取”过程将分析物从样品基质中转移出来。有时分配是相对非特异性的，例如在溶剂提取或固相微萃取(SPME)中，以及在高效液相色谱中也是如此。我们将利用这些核心技术来开发检测水中大肠杆菌和其他细菌的新技术。我们将开发用于光纤组件的新型聚合物SPME涂层，用于基于振铃光谱的环境传感器。我们将开发一系列新的高效液相技术，以分离和测定油中的烷基多环芳烃。这些将有助于在未来确定环境污染的特征的一个全新的制度。

Environmental monitoring for a wide range of contaminants is increasingly important as human activities causegreater stress on environmental systems. Water quality is of particular concern, as evidenced by an increasingnumber of contamination events affecting drinking water or water sources. Currently, monitoring is infrequentand expensive, and knowledge of contamination trends, even in drinking water, is seriously lacking. InCanada, drinking water is monitored daily for microbiological contaminants only at the plant, and chemicalcontaminants are checked only every three months.My research program is targeted to detection of organic molecules in a variety of sample types, where themolecules are sometimes contaminants of concern, and in other applications are secondary indicators ofcontamination. We are detecting a variety of organic analytes, with a significant emphasis on polycyclicaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), but a core set of analytical techniques and principles is used in all projects. Afundamental step in most methods for analyzing organic compounds is the transfer of the analyte from thesample matrix using a "partitioning" or "extraction" process. Sometimes partitioning is relatively non-specific,such as in solvent extraction or solid-phase micro-extraction (SPME), and also in high-performance liquidchromatography.We will use these core techniques to develop new technology for detecting E.coli and other bacteria in water.  We will develop new polymer SPME coatings for fibre-optic components to be used in ring-downspectroscopy based environmental sensors. We will developed a novel series of HPLC techniques which allow for isolating and determining the alkyl-PAH in oils. These will contribute to a completely new regime for characterizing environmental contamination in the future.