Wastewater epidemiology is an emerging discipline that requires collaborative research involving analytical chemists, drug epidemiologists, and wastewater engineers. Wastewater epidemiology involves the sampling and quantitative analysis of raw wastewaters from communities for illicit drugs and their metabolites. Mass loads (mass per day) and per capita (mg per day per person)...
The development of analytical methods for emerging contaminants creates many unique challenges for analytical chemists. By their nature, emerging contaminants have inherent data gaps related to their environmental occurrence, fate, and impact. This dissertation is a compilation of three studies related to method development for the structural identification of emerging...
Research and public concern of poly and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) as environmental contaminants has increased significantly due to the increasing number of reports of their detection in humans and wildlife. PFASs have a number of commercial applications including surfactants, coatings, polymers, and levelers, which are used on consumer products like...
Large quantities of the chemical oil dispersant Corexit were applied in the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Large data gaps regarding the potential transport, persistence and impact of Corexit in the Gulf existed at the time of the emergency response. Analytical methods for...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are an emerging chemical class of concern. Recently in the United States, Health Advisory Limits for two PFAS in drinking water were established for perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoate in drinking water (set to 70 ng/L combine concentration) by the EPA. Because of PFAS mobility, persistence,...
Linear alkylbenzenesulfonate (LAS) is the most widely used anionic surfactant in
commercial detergent formulations. The environmental fate of LAS is of interest because
of its disposal to wastewater treatment facilities and subsequent occurrence as a
micropollutant in surface waters and groundwater. While LAS fate in wastewater
treatment systems and surface...
Public attention and concern about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are increasing due to detection of PFASs in drinking water supplies, the environment, including remote locations, and wildlife and to the lowering of the federal health advisory levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) in drinking water. Aqueous film-forming...
It is the responsibility of humans, as environmental stewards, to monitor our impact on the environment so that efforts can be made to remediate the effects of our actions and change behaviors. To better understand our environmental footprint, sensitive and simple analytical methods are needed to quantify the contaminants that...
Trichloroethene (TCE) is the most frequently detected organic contaminant in groundwater, is classified as a probable human carcinogen, and exhibits toxicological effects on the human endocrine, immune, developmental, and reproductive systems. While significant research efforts have been devoted to the development of strategies for remediating TCE-contaminated groundwater, their advancement is...
The presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), organic contaminants first synthesized in the 1940s, has been reported worldwide in a variety of environmental matrices and ultimately in biological systems including humans. Ongoing research into PFAS has included identifying novel PFAS, assessing their fate and transport in the environment, and...