Environmental Analysis

Is your swimming pool clean and safe? Recreational water illness, most commonly in the form of digestive tract illness or skin, ear, or respiratory infections, is often caused by water contamination. The authors present a robust method, using solid-phase extraction and high-resolution mass spectrometry, for monitoring swimming pool water.

Single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS) is an exciting new technique for detecting and characterizing metal nanoparticles (NP) at very low concentrations. It is fast and can provide significantly more information than other traditional techniques, including particle number concentration, particle size, and size distribution, in addition to the concentration of dissolved metals in solution. The added benefit of using ICP-MS is that it can distinguish between particles of different elemental compositions. The study will investigate the use of SP-ICP-MS to track the release of ENMs into the environment and to better understand their fate and behavior specifically in drinking, surface and wastewater samples.

A brief introduction to the articles presented in this supplement.

New Developments in the Analysis of Complex Environmental Matrices

This article gives an up-to-date commentary on chiral liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry for the determination of pharmacologically active chiral compounds (cPACs) (including illicit drugs) in environmental matrices. Several applications are discussed to demonstrate the benefits of performing environmental analysis of cPACs at the enantiomeric level. Finally, future perspectives in this rapidly developing field of research are outlined.

This study focuses on United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Method 524.3 for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in water using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS).

A rapid, high-throughput analytical method was developed and evaluated for the simultaneous determination of pesticides and environmental contaminants in fish.

The Column spoke to Rajmund Michalski from the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Environmental Engineering in Zabrze, Poland, about the application of ion chromatography in speciation analysis.

The RSC Environmental Chemistry Group and the RSC Analytical Division Separation Science Group will hold a joint meeting entitled "New Developments in the Analysis of Complex Environmental Matrices" in London, UK, on 6 February 2015.

In the second of a two-part Q&A, The Column spoke to Paul A. Sutton, a research fellow in the Petroleum and Environmental Geochemistry Group at Plymouth University (Plymouth, UK), about his experience with high temperature gas chromatography (HTGC), and his best practices for analysts in the lab.

During the past year, LCGC examined current trends in the application of liquid chromatography (LC), and gas chromatography (GC), and related techniques in environmental, food, forensics, and pharmaceutical analysis. This article presents some developments made by separation scientists working in these application areas and offers insights into the current trends in each field.

Our interviews with separation science experts in specific application areas, such as environmental, food, forensics, and pharmaceutical analysis, have provided the LCGC audience with insights into what's going on in those fields. Here, we have excerpted several recent interviews that were published in our application-focused newsletters and our digital magazine, The Column.

In the first of a two-part Q&A The Column spoke to Paul A. Sutton, a research fellow in the Petroleum and Environmental Geochemistry Group (PEGG) at Plymouth University (Plymouth, UK), about the analysis of crude oil and how high temperature gas chromatography can be used to save millions of dollars for the oil industry.

Chris Reddy from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spoke to LCGC about the role of chromatography in the ongoing environmental analysis of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, how comprehensive GCXGC works in practice, and why this oil spill led to the return of thin layer chromatography (TLC) to his laboratory.

This article presents GC–GC(qMSMS) data on the analysis and quantitation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in a complex matrix (fly ash). Calibration curves were recorded between 0.1 pg and 100 pg.

LCGC recently spoke with Edward T. Furlong of the Methods Research and Development Program at the National Water Quality Laboratory with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) about his group's work on developing new methods to detect pharmaceutical contaminants in waterways.

This article compares results from samples prepared and analyzed according to EPA Method 1613B on a sector instrument with those from a high-resolution, accurate mass TOF mass spectrometer and a low-resolution TOF mass spectrometer interfaced to a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC) system (GC?C–TOF-MS).

Click here to view the full LCGC Europe E-newsletter from 28 June

Click here to view the complete E-Separation Solutions newsletter from June 25, 2013.

The European Commission has imposed a ban on three neonicortinoid pesticides within the European Union – clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiametoxam. This follows the publication of a series of reviews into the risks posed by the insecticides by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma, Italy, in January 2013.1,2,3 These reviews stem from the publication of numerous chromatographic studies, which suggest a link between pesticide exposure and “colony collapse disorderâ€â€“ the mysterious decline of honeybee populations.

Innovative methods to achieve high sensitivity and specific analyte identi?fication in complex environmental matrices were discussed at a recent event held at the RSC headquarters in London, UK.

LCGC spoke to Professor Andrea Tapparo, of the University of Padova (Italy) about studying honey bee decline with chromatography.

Since its introduction in 1975, ion chromatography (IC) has been used in most areas of analytical chemistry and has become a versatile and powerful technique for the analysis of a vast number of ions present in the environment. This article is a review of possible uses of IC in combination with MS detection for environmental research.

A review of possible uses of ion chromatography (IC) in combination with mass spectrometry (MS) detection for environmental research

Sample clean-up using solid-phase extraction (SPE) and similar methods can sometimes be both time-consuming and expensive. The purification of complex plant extracts requires special care in particular. A robust and sensitive online SPE sample preparation method is described for the determination of steviol glycosides.