Nontargeted Screening as an Essential Tool for Drinking Water Quality Monitoring

“The treatment of water for human use and consumption can lead to the generation of potentially hazardous transformation products (TPs) from organic micropollutants (OMPs), a group of synthetic chemicals present in water sources at very low concentrations. Despite the potential toxicity of TPs, they are not measured routinely, due to the analytical challenges associated with their identification. One of the major challenges is confidently identifying OMPs and their TPs given the plethora of possible compounds known to exist. With advances in analytical methodology, a combination of targeted and nontargeted screening can be applied to identify the “known,” “known unknown,” and “unknown unknown” contaminants present within a sample. In this article, we present a study performed using liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC–HRMS), in combination with a comprehensive data analysis workflow, to screen water samples for TPs to determine the efficacy of different water treatment methods.”

(Citation: Brunner, A.M. – Nontargeted Screening as an Essential Tool for Drinking Water Quality Monitoring – Current Trends of Mass Spectrometry Special Issues 18(2020)2, p. 4-9)