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UColorado Opens Lab to Detect Drugs in Drinking Water

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The University of Colorado's Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering in Boulder announced the opening of the Center for Environmental Mass Spectrometry (CEMS), a laboratory focusing on the detection of pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other organic contaminants in water and evaluating the effectiveness of methods for removing them. The topic of drugs in drinking water recently gained increased visibility when an Associated Press survey revealed that an assortment including antidepressants, antibiotics and birth control prescriptions were detected in the municipal drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas serving 41 million Americans. "We're looking at the problem from a number of angles. First, to help define this growing problem and to underscore the need for more testing and treatment at the municipal level. We also intend to work with people around the world to help find solutions such as evaluating various water-treatment options," said Karl Linden, PhD, the lead scientist on water treatment at CEMS. Agilent Technologies Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., is loaning a $270,000 time-of-flight (TOF) core liquid chromatograph/mass spectrometer (LC/MS) system to the lab at no charge, the university said. The instrument is sensitive down to the attomole (one quintillionth, or 10 to the negative 18 power of a mole) range, and offers better than two parts-per-million mass accuracy. "Pharmaceuticals are biologically active compounds designed specifically to affect the human body," said CEMS co-creator E. Michael Thurman, PhD. "Low concentrations of parts-per-billion or parts-per-trillion generally aren't considered dangerous over the short term, but no one knows about the long-term human and ecological effects."
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Published: April 2008
Glossary
mass spectrometer
A device used to measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules. It utilizes the Lorentz force generated by external magnetic field on a moving charged particle, in which the particles are deflected by the magnetic field according to their masses. Once deflected, the particles are detected and recorded electrically to provide a mass spectrum of the input beam of ions.
mass spectrometry
An instrumental technique that utilizes the mass-to-charge ratio of charged particles as recorded from a mass spectrometer in order to determine the mass of a particle as well as the chemical makeup, or elemental ionic composition of a given sample or molecule.
nano
An SI prefix meaning one billionth (10-9). Nano can also be used to indicate the study of atoms, molecules and other structures and particles on the nanometer scale. Nano-optics (also referred to as nanophotonics), for example, is the study of how light and light-matter interactions behave on the nanometer scale. See nanophotonics.
photonics
The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
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