Identify and Quantify Trace Contaminants in Drinking Water and its Sources

在加拿大，公众对高质量水的需求和严格的法规是调查传统处理工艺替代方案的主要驱动力。所需的设备(带有质谱计检测器的气相色谱仪，GC/MS)将取代使用得很好但已过时的仪器。因此，它将确保及时继续进行关于先进和新兴技术的研究，以最大限度地减少饮用水中现有和新出现的污染物浓度。通过这样做，它将支持对5个研究小组的30多名HQP进行跨学科培训，其成果将对加拿大人的健康和福祉产生重大好处。在世界各地的源头(湖泊、河流)和经处理的饮用水中检测到各种人为污染物，增加了人们对其潜在的不利生态和人类影响的担忧。近年来，公众也越来越多地意识到微污染物的存在，例如在饮用水中引起味道和气味的污染物。这一动机导致了对新的处理工艺的需求，其中包括使用超滤膜、生物过滤和/或高级氧化工艺来显著改善饮用水中微污染物的去除。相比之下，最近采用的一些处理技术被观察到与微污染物反应，如药物活性化合物(PHAC)，形成人类致癌物，包括N-亚硝基二甲胺(NDMA)。因此，人们对潜在有毒消毒副产品的形成重新产生了兴趣，目的是尽量减少或最终从到达消费者的饮用水中消除这些副产品。这代表了饮用水研究小组的一个主要重点，该小组由这项提案的三名联合调查员(教授。地下水是世界许多地区饮用水的主要来源，不幸的是，由于人类活动，许多地区已被致癌化学物质污染。教授们。B.休眠和E.Passeport进行研究，重点是地下水和土壤的修复，以加深对有机污染物转移和转化机制的了解。他们的研究为如何最好地设计和运行环境补救策略提供了信息。为了帮助确保有效地检测和识别我们水资源中的污染物，并使先进的水处理系统得到适当的评估，必须获得所需的设备，以便研究人员能够继续识别和量化污染物。这将确保能够准确评估导致其减少的缓解战略。

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.