Guarding Drinking Water Safety against Harmful Algal Blooms: Could UV/Cl Treatment Be the Answer?

Frequent and severe occurrences of harmful algal blooms increasingly threaten human health by the release of microcystins (MCs). Urgent attention is directed toward managing MCs, as evidenced by rising HAB-related do not drink/do not boil advisories due to unsafe MC levels in drinking water. UV/chlorine treatment, in which UV light is applied simultaneously with chlorine, showed early promise for effectively degrading MC-LR to values below the World Health Organization's guideline limits.

Better Together: Tandem Mass Spectrometry Achieves up to 50 Times Lower Quantification of 62 Disinfection Byproducts in Drinking Water.

Disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are ubiquitous contaminants present in nearly all drinking water and are associated with adverse health effects in human epidemiologic studies. The most toxic DBPs are unregulated and often occur at concentrations well below regulated DBPs; thus, quantification at low parts-per-trillion (ng/L) levels is critical in assessing exposure. We developed a new liquid-liquid extraction-gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LLE-GC-MS/MS) method with the first analysis by tandem gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of 23 priority unregulated DBPs including 13 haloacetamides, 3 haloacetic acids, 2 haloacetonitriles, 1 haloacetaldehyde, 2 haloketones, and 2 halonitromethanes.

Identifying PFAS hotspots in surface waters of South Carolina using a new optimized total organic fluorine method and target LC-MS/MS.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are environmental contaminants of concern due to their long persistence in the environment, toxicity, and widespread presence in humans and wildlife. Knowledge regarding the extent of PFAS contamination in the environment is limited due to the need for analytical methods that can reliably quantify all PFAS, since traditional target methods using liquid chromatography (LC)-mass spectrometry (MS) fail to capture many. For a more comprehensive analysis, a total organic fluorine (TOF) method can be used as a screening tool.

Low Parts Per Trillion Detection of Iodinated Disinfection Byproducts in Drinking Water and Urine using Vacuum-Assisted Sorbent Extraction and GC-MS/MS.

Disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants, which are present in virtually all drinking water and linked to detrimental health effects. Iodinated-DBPs are more cytotoxic and genotoxic than chloro- and bromo-DBPs and are formed during disinfection of iodide-containing source water. Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) paired with gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry (MS) has been the method of choice in the study of low molecular weight iodinated-DBPs; however, this method is laborious and time-consuming and struggles with complex matrices.