Publications by authors named "Jan H Christensen"

Liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) is commonly used for identification of compounds in complex samples due to the high chromatographic and mass spectral resolution provided. In subsequent data processing workflows, it is imperative to preserve this resolution to fully exploit the data. "Region of interest" (ROI) algorithms were introduced as a better alternative to equidistant binning for compressing HRMS data because they better preserve the mass spectral resolution.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Environmental consequences of petroleum mulch application are crucial in regions prone to wind erosion and desertification. This study aimed to assess the long-term effects of petroleum mulching on soil polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations and the associated human and ecological risk indices. These indices include incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR), hazard index (HI), toxic equivalent concentration (TEQ), toxic unit (TU), and risk quotient (RQ) in soil samples from Khuzestan province, Iran.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study examines how well different types of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) and an anion exchange resin can remove PFAS and other contaminants from groundwater used for drinking water production.
  • GAC was effective initially, showing low breakthrough rates for contaminants, but its efficiency decreased over time; however, the resin improved the removal of certain acid compounds but not all.
  • Some contaminants were effectively removed, but the use of resin filters led to the detection of new contaminants in the treated water, raising concerns about drinking water safety.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Effluent wastewater from conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is a source of environmental micropollutants. This study investigated temporal trends of organic micropollutants in effluent wastewater, aiming to identify underlying drivers and their implications for treatment efficiency. From September to December 2022, we collected 168 effluent and 10 influent samples.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Estimating the chemical hazards of drinking water stored in reusable plastic bottles is challenging due to the numerous intentionally and unintentionally added chemicals. To address this, we developed a broad screening strategy using evaporation enrichment and liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) to evaluate migration of non-volatile chemicals from various reusable plastic bottles. The study analyzed a wide range of materials, revealing significant variability in chemical profiles across different bottle types.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) often fail to fully remove organic micro-pollutants (OMPs), necessitating advanced treatment methods. This study examines the potential of an agricultural waste-derived adsorbent, rice husk (RH) - silica, for removing a complex mixture of 20 OMPs in MilliQ water and wastewater effluent. While RH-silica shows potential for OMP removal, its performance with multicomponent mixtures in real wastewater has yet to be investigated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wastewater is a major reservoir for chemical contaminants, both anthropogenic and biogenic. Recent chemical and toxicological analysis reveals the abundance and impact of these compounds, often termed contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). Concurrently, incomplete removal of these compounds in wastewater treatment plants sets a precedent for detailed characterisation and monitoring of such substances.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Nontargeted screening (NTS) utilizing liquid chromatography electrospray ionization high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC/ESI/HRMS) is increasingly used to identify environmental contaminants. Major differences in the ionization efficiency of compounds in ESI/HRMS result in widely varying responses and complicate quantitative analysis. Despite an increasing number of methods for quantification without authentic standards in NTS, the approaches are evaluated on limited and diverse data sets with varying chemical coverage collected on different instruments, complicating an unbiased comparison.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Contaminants of emerging concern receive increasing attention in the Arctic environment. The aim of this study was to screen for chemicals of emerging Arctic concern (CEACs) in different types of Arctic samples including biota, air and human serum. We used a combination of gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography (LC) with high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) for suspect and non-target screening (NTS).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Due to the increasing number of chemicals released into the environment, nontarget screening (NTS) analysis is a necessary tool for providing comprehensive chemical analysis of environmental pollutants. However, NTS workflows encounter challenges in detecting both known and unknown pollutants with common chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) methods. Identification of unknowns is hindered by limited elemental composition information, and quantification without identical reference standards is prone to errors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Due to the decoupling of the first (D) and second (D) dimension in pulsed elution-LC × LC (PE-LC × LC), method development is more flexible and straightforward compared to fast comprehensive LC × LC where the dependencies of key parameters between the two dimensions limits its flexibility. In this study we present a method for pulse generation, which is based on a switching valve alternating between one pump that delivers the gradient and a second pump that delivers low eluotrophic strength for the pause state. Consequently, the dwell volume of the system was circumvented and 7.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers assessed Fucus seaweed in the Faroe Islands to determine its effectiveness as a biomonitor for PAH pollution, using advanced chemical analysis techniques.
  • The most contaminated samples were taken from the Tórshavn harbor, showing significantly higher levels of alkylated PAHs compared to their parent compounds.
  • Variability in PAH concentrations based on sampling location and time highlights the impact of environmental factors, emphasizing the importance of refining the sampling strategy for accurate pollution assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Matrix effects can affect detection limits, precision, and accuracy and lead to signal enhancement or suppression effects in gas chromatography analysis. Analyte protectants, such as shikimic acid and gluconolactone, can imitate the effect of matrix components and reduce the differences in matrix effect between samples. This study aimed to investigate the ability of analyte protectants to enhance gas chromatography detector signals of different oxygenated-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Quantitative nontarget analysis (qNTA) for liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry enables a more comprehensive assessment of environmental samples. Previous studies have shown that correlations between a compound's ionization efficiency and a range of molecular descriptors can predict the compound's concentration within a factor of 5. In this study, the qNTA approach was further improved by considering all mass adducts instead of only the protonated ion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study looked at how tiny pollution particles (micropollutants) are found in wastewater from different areas in Denmark and how they affect the environment.
  • Researchers took samples from eight wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and found 79 micropollutants out of 291 they were looking for.
  • They discovered that while most micropollutants got less concentrated during treatment, some like certain medications actually increased, showing that the area where the wastewater comes from matters a lot.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on the health impacts of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in urban environments and uses the moss species Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus to monitor airborne PAH pollution in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands.
  • A total of 53 moss samples were analyzed for 19 parent PAHs, revealing significant concentration variations, with higher amounts located near the harbor and main roads; the total PAHs measured ranged from 0.90 to 344 µg per kg of dry weight.
  • Findings indicate that different pollution sources uniquely affect urban areas, and this research is the first to utilize Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus for mapping PAH pollution
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Broad screening approaches for monitoring wastewater are normally based on reversed-phase liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). This method is not sufficient for the very polar micropollutants, neglected in the past due to a lack of suitable analytical methods. In this study, we used supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) to detect very polar and yet-undetected micropollutants in wastewater effluents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Microorganisms in the soil of potted plants are important for removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from indoor air, but little is known about the subject. The aim of this study was therefore to obtain a better understanding of the effect of VOCs on the microbial community in potted plants. Hedera helix was exposed to gasoline vapors under dynamic chamber conditions for 21 days and three main parameters were investigated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Household waste is a potential source of energy and recyclable materials, but it contains micropollutants that need to be assessed for human and environmental safety in a circular economy context.
  • The study utilized advanced analytical techniques to detect and quantify 31 micropollutants, including pharmaceuticals and industrial compounds, while 50 out of 206 suspect compounds were tentatively identified.
  • Anaerobic digestion showed that most detected compounds decreased significantly or stayed the same, with only a few showing an increase in concentration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Phytotoxins (PTs) are bioactive secondary metabolites produced by plants. More recently, they have been recognized as important aquatic micropollutants. Despite that, only a few PTs have been detected and reported in terrestrial and aquatic environments, while their source and leaching pathways remain largely unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The effectiveness of oil spill breakdown in Arctic waters is heavily influenced by the presence of oil-degrading bacteria, whose activity is hindered by extreme seasonal conditions like nutrient scarcity and freezing temperatures.
  • Research was conducted in SW-Greenland fjords, comparing the epipelagic (shallower, variable conditions) and mesopelagic (deeper, stable conditions) zones to assess their impact on bacterial growth and oil degradation rates, with findings indicating lower biodegradation in the epipelagic zone due to harsher environmental factors.
  • Genetic analysis revealed that bacterial populations were significantly denser and more diverse in the mesopelagic zone, correlating with a more effective oil degradation process compared to the epipelagic zone, where poor growth conditions limited
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Polyethylene (PE) pipes are often the material of choice for water supply systems, thanks to their favorable properties, such as high strength-density ratio and corrosion resistance. However, previous studies have shown that organic compounds can migrate from PE pipes to the water. This study aimed to identify potential organic compounds migrating from high-density PE (HDPE) pipes used to distribute drinking water in Denmark, based on laboratory experiments and sampling in the distribution system using a two-tiered study design.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A nontarget screening method was developed based on D-optimal designs for ultra-high performance supercritical fluid chromatography with positive and negative electrospray ionization mode mass spectrometry. A mixture of organic contaminants such as pesticides, steroids, surfactants, phenolic and fatty acids, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon derivatives, was used for the optimization. An aprotic mixture of dichloromethane and acetone [3:1] performed overall best as the injection solvent.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This work builds upon recent developments in the field of second dimensional (2D) retention indices (RI) for use in comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC), expanding application to the most commonly used "normal" orthogonality column configuration, where 2D RI are rarely employed. Initially, one dimensional retention indices for 80 wastewater pollutants were determined by GC-MS on a mid-polar ZB-50 column. In order to determine the 2D RIs for peaks detected in wastewater extracts separated by GC×GC -MS, a single injection of a ten-compound standard mix allowed the construction of model-generated isovolatility curves.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The aim of this study was to compare the reduction quality of the anterolateral (AL) and modified posterolateral approach (PL) in lateral tibial plateau fractures involving the posterior column and central segments.

Methods: Matched pairs of pre-fractured cadaveric tibial plateau fractures were treated by either AL approach (supine position) or PL approach (prone position). Reduction was controlled by fluoroscopy and evaluated as satisfying or unacceptable.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF