Improved Monitoring of Hydrophilic Aquatic Contaminants of Emerging Concern

Approximately half of all registered chemicals are electrically charged in environmental conditions. This charge means these chemicals generally prefer to be in water rather than soil, air, or other media. This property, known as hydrophilicity, allows these chemicals to be highly mobile in our waterways and makes their sampling more difficult, which means it is difficult to detect charged chemicals polluting our waterways. By investigating the properties and sampling methods for charged pollutants this project aims to provide a greater understanding of chemical behaviour and develop practical tools for their sampling.

Research Outputs

Clokey, J.E., Hawker, D.W., Verhagen, R., Gorji, S.G., Knight, E.R., Thomas, K.V. and Kaserzon, S.L., 2023. Calibration of a microporous polyethylene tube passive sampler for polar organic compounds in wastewater effluent. Science of The Total Environment, 874, p.162497.

Conference Abstracts

Clokey, J., Hawker, D., Verhagen, R., Ghorbani Gorji, S., Thomas, K. & Kaserzon, S. Challenges and opportunities for integration of vPICs into water monitoring strategies, SETAC-AU Conference 2021, Melbourne, Australia, 30 August – 2 September 2021.

Clokey, J., Hawker, D., Verhagen, R., Knight, E., Veal, C., Leahy, P., Allen, I., Thomas, K. & Kaserzon, S. Challenges and opportunities for integration of very polar and ionisable compounds (vPICs) into passive sampling strategies, 12^th International Passive Sampling Workshop and Symposium 2021, Online, 4-5 November 2021.

Clokey, J., Hawker, D., Verhagen, R., Knight, E., Veal, C., Leahy, P., Allen, I., Thomas, K., Kaserzon, S. Evaluation of vPIC partition coefficients with 8 types of sorbents in the laboratory and an environmental deployment, International Passive Sampling Workshop, Utrecht, Netherlands, 18-22 September 2022.