Novel monitoring concepts to acquire new water quality knowledge

Abstract

Two novel water quality monitoring concepts were developed: the HPLC-fingerprint for the monitoring of yet unidentified pollutants and the HPLC-Toxprint for the recognition of (unknown) toxic or genotoxic compounds. The paper describes applications of both concepts. The HPLC-fingerprint is used for the evaluation of the overall water quality in addition to the monitoring of individual pollutants. Based on their occurrence (frequency, concentration, location) a listing of unknown priority pollutants is set up. Participating waterworks monitor for these compounds using a dedicated HPLC-DAD library that contains the required compound data (UV-absorbance spectrum, retention time index). In five years of experience with this concept, the HPLC-fingerprint was also found very suitable for the retrieval of new priority pollutants in existing HPLC-fingerprint databases, providing historic data on these new compounds. The HPLC-fingerprint concept was also used as an Early Warning System for accidental spills or sabotage. The HPLC-Toxprint was successfully applied in identifying genotoxicity (in the umu-test) in various waste water samples. By the application of LC-MS/MS genotoxicity could be assigned to acridine-derivatives in one of these wastewaters. To enable the evaluation of drinking water resources, the sensitivity of the HPLC-Toxprint was improved, now allowing the detection of pollutants with a 10% genotoxic potential as compared to 2-aminoanthracene (the positive control compound) at concentrations as low as 0.1 microg/l.

Sediment source fingerprinting: benchmarking recent outputs, remaining challenges and emerging themes

“…They then measured percentage weight loss-on-ignition (LOI) on suspended sediment samples collected fortnightly during the monitoring period and during a storm runoff event to calibrate a regression model able to predict suspended sediment LOI from light absorbance. Lopez-Roldan et al ( 2016 ) successfully predicted the contribution of the water origin to the Barcelona drinking water network using data from a spectrophotometric probe and a small number of physico-chemical parameters, whereas Noij and Bobeldijk ( 2003 ) used data from a spectrophotometric probe to detect the intrusion of chemical and microbiological constituents in a water network. Current investigations are addressing the potential use of high-frequency absorbance data for sediment source tracing (Lake et al 2019 ), but many challenges are still to be addressed before absorbance can be routinely used for tracing, including assessment of tracer conservatism and influence of particle size distributions.…”

Application of Automated Mass Spectrometry Deconvolution and Identification Software for Pesticide Analysis in Surface Waters

“…The idea of using a GC-MS fingerprint and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint for the monitoring of organic compounds has been explored and reported in the literature. [14,15] In general GC-MS is a qualitative method. Some quantification can be done for compounds that give distinguished peaks, with no co-elution and interference, by running standards in the scan mode.…”

Integration of Ultraviolet–Visible spectral and physicochemical data in chemometrics analysis for improved discrimination of water sources and blends for application to the complex drinking water distribution network of Barcelona

“…In this context, the use of UVeVis fingerprint by spectrophotometric probes has been proposed as a useful strategy to cover a much broader range of potential threats, such as the intrusion of chemical or microbiological constituents in the network (Noij and Bobeldijk, 2003). These in-line/on-line parameters must show a quick response to potential quality changes, which implies the need for real time measurements.…”