Characterization of environmental contaminants using nuclear magnetic resonance

目前表征环境污染物的做法主要依赖于对从环境介质（如土壤或地下水样本）中物理提取的一组选定化合物的针对性分析。这些方法在区分土壤或沉积物中污染物的结合形式和自由形式方面的能力很大程度上受到限制，而不进行物理改变样品的提取，从而影响在环境风险评估中使用分析信息的可靠性。充分了解这些化合物与地质物质相互作用的机制（例如，与矿物质络合，与土壤中的有机物结合等）对于理解污染物降解的机制，以及了解这些化合物可能对环境的影响，包括潜在的人类/生态暴露机制至关重要。需要新颖的方法来表征环境样品，以提高我们对环境介质中化合物真实行为的理解，并改进补救设计。

The current practice for characterizing environmental contaminants relies largely on targeted analysis of a selected set of compounds that have been physically extracted from an environmental media, such as a soil or groundwater sample. These approaches are largely limited in their ability to differentiate between bound and free forms of a contaminant in a soil or sediment without performing extractions that physically change the sample, thus impacting the reliability of the analytical information when used in environmental risk assessments. Full knowledge of the mechanisms through which these compounds interact with geological materials (e.g., complexed with minerals, bound to organic matter in the soil, etc.) is vital for understanding the mechanisms involved in contaminant degradation, and for understanding the possible environmental impacts of these compounds including the potential human/ecological exposure mechanisms. Novel methods to characterize environmental samples as is are required to improve our understanding of the true behavior of compounds in environmental media and improve remedial design making.