| 1. |
- Brack, Werner, et al.
(författare)
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The SOLUTIONS project : Challenges and responses for present and future emerging pollutants in land and water resources management
- 2015
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 503, s. 22-31
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- SOLUTIONS (2013 to 2018) is a European Union Seventh Framework Programme Project (EU-FP7). The project aims to deliver a conceptual framework to support the evidence-based development of environmental policies with regard to water quality. SOLUTIONS will develop the tools for the identification, prioritisation and assessment of those water contaminants that may pose a risk to ecosystems and human health. To this end, a new generation of chemical and effect-based monitoring tools is developed and integrated with a full set of exposure, effect and risk assessment models. SOLUTIONS attempts to address legacy, present and future contamination by integrating monitoring and modelling based approaches with scenarios on future developments in society, economy and technology and thus in contamination. The project follows a solutions-oriented approach by addressing major problems of water and chemicals management and by assessing abatement options. SOLUTIONS takes advantage of the access to the infrastructure necessary to investigate the large basins of the Danube and Rhine as well as relevant Mediterranean basins as case studies, and puts major efforts on stakeholder dialogue and support. Particularly, the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) working groups, International River Commissions, and water works associations are directly supported. with consistent guidance for the early detection, identification, prioritisation, and abatement of chemicals in the water cycle. SOLUTIONS will give a specific emphasis on concepts and tools for the impact and risk assessment of complex mixtures of emerging pollutants, their metabolites and transformation products. Analytical and effect-based screening tools will be applied together with ecological assessment tools for the identification of toxicants and their impacts. The SOLUTIONS approach is expected to provide transparent and evidence-based candidates or River Basin Specific Pollutants in the case study basins and to assist future review of priority pollutants under the WFD as well as potential abatement options.
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| 2. |
- Mohammed Taha, Hiba, et al.
(författare)
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The NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (NORMAN-SLE) : facilitating European and worldwide collaboration on suspect screening in high resolution mass spectrometry
- 2022
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Ingår i: Environmental Sciences Europe. - : Springer. - 2190-4707 .- 2190-4715. ; 34:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The NORMAN Association (https://www.norman-network.com/) initiated the NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (NORMAN-SLE; https://www.norman-network.com/nds/SLE/) in 2015, following the NORMAN collaborative trial on non-target screening of environmental water samples by mass spectrometry. Since then, this exchange of information on chemicals that are expected to occur in the environment, along with the accompanying expert knowledge and references, has become a valuable knowledge base for “suspect screening” lists. The NORMAN-SLE now serves as a FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) chemical information resource worldwide.Results: The NORMAN-SLE contains 99 separate suspect list collections (as of May 2022) from over 70 contributors around the world, totalling over 100,000 unique substances. The substance classes include per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pharmaceuticals, pesticides, natural toxins, high production volume substances covered under the European REACH regulation (EC: 1272/2008), priority contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and regulatory lists from NORMAN partners. Several lists focus on transformation products (TPs) and complex features detected in the environment with various levels of provenance and structural information. Each list is available for separate download. The merged, curated collection is also available as the NORMAN Substance Database (NORMAN SusDat). Both the NORMAN-SLE and NORMAN SusDat are integrated within the NORMAN Database System (NDS). The individual NORMAN-SLE lists receive digital object identifiers (DOIs) and traceable versioning via a Zenodo community (https://zenodo.org/communities/norman-sle), with a total of > 40,000 unique views, > 50,000 unique downloads and 40 citations (May 2022). NORMAN-SLE content is progressively integrated into large open chemical databases such as PubChem (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and the US EPA’s CompTox Chemicals Dashboard (https://comptox.epa.gov/dashboard/), enabling further access to these lists, along with the additional functionality and calculated properties these resources offer. PubChem has also integrated significant annotation content from the NORMAN-SLE, including a classification browser (https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/classification/#hid=101).Conclusions: The NORMAN-SLE offers a specialized service for hosting suspect screening lists of relevance for the environmental community in an open, FAIR manner that allows integration with other major chemical resources. These efforts foster the exchange of information between scientists and regulators, supporting the paradigm shift to the “one substance, one assessment” approach. New submissions are welcome via the contacts provided on the NORMAN-SLE website (https://www.norman-network.com/nds/SLE/).
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| 3. |
- Alvarez-Mora, Iker, et al.
(författare)
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Progress, applications, and challenges in high-throughput effect-directed analysis for toxicity driver identification : is it time for HT-EDA?
- 2024
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Ingår i: Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. - : Springer Nature. - 1618-2642 .- 1618-2650.
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The rapid increase in the production and global use of chemicals and their mixtures has raised concerns about their potential impact on human and environmental health. With advances in analytical techniques, in particular, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), thousands of compounds and transformation products with potential adverse effects can now be detected in environmental samples. However, identifying and prioritizing the toxicity drivers among these compounds remain a significant challenge. Effect-directed analysis (EDA) emerged as an important tool to address this challenge, combining biotesting, sample fractionation, and chemical analysis to unravel toxicity drivers in complex mixtures. Traditional EDA workflows are labor-intensive and time-consuming, hindering large-scale applications. The concept of high-throughput (HT) EDA has recently gained traction as a means of accelerating these workflows. Key features of HT-EDA include the combination of microfractionation and downscaled bioassays, automation of sample preparation and biotesting, and efficient data processing workflows supported by novel computational tools. In addition to microplate-based fractionation, high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) offers an interesting alternative to HPLC in HT-EDA. This review provides an updated perspective on the state-of-the-art in HT-EDA, and novel methods/tools that can be incorporated into HT-EDA workflows. It also discusses recent studies on HT-EDA, HT bioassays, and computational prioritization tools, along with considerations regarding HPTLC. By identifying current gaps in HT-EDA and proposing new approaches to overcome them, this review aims to bring HT-EDA a step closer to monitoring applications.
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| 4. |
- Brack, Werner, et al.
(författare)
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Towards the review of the European Union Water Framework Directive : Recommendations for more efficient assessment and management of chemical contamination in European surface water resources
- 2017
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 576, s. 720-737
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Water is a vital resource for natural ecosystems and human life, and assuring a high quality of water and protecting it from chemical contamination is a major societal goal in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its daughter directives are the major body of legislation for the protection and sustainable use of European freshwater resources. The practical implementation of the WFD with regard to chemical pollution has faced some challenges. In support of the upcoming WFD review in 2019 the research project SOLUTIONS and the European monitoring network NORMAN has analyzed these challenges, evaluated the state-of-the-art of the science and suggested possible solutions. We give 10 recommendations to improve monitoring and to strengthen comprehensive prioritization, to foster consistent assessment and to support solution-oriented management of surface waters. The integration of effect-based tools, the application of passive sampling for bioaccumulative chemicals and an integrated strategy for prioritization of contaminants, accounting for knowledge gaps, are seen as important approaches to advance monitoring. Including all relevant chemical contaminants in more holistic chemical status assessment, using effect-based trigger values to address priority mixtures of chemicals, to better consider historical burdens accumulated in sediments and to use models to fill data gaps are recommended for a consistent assessment of contamination. Solution-oriented management should apply a tiered approach in investigative monitoring, to identify toxicity drivers, strengthen consistent legislative frameworks and apply solutions-oriented approaches that explore risk reduction scenarios before and along with risk assessment.
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| 5. |
- Dubocq, Florian, 1994-
(författare)
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Optimizing nontarget workflows for identification of organic contaminants in various matrices
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since year 2000, production of chemicals around the world has more than doubled. Chemicals are used in many and diverse applications in our everyday life and even if their properties are useful, some can have a negative impact on environment and humans. It is thus important to monitor these chemicals to better understand their impact on the environment and human health.In this thesis, nontarget analysis (NTA) was used to detect and identify organic compounds in various environmental and health relevant matrices such as fish, indoor dust, aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) and fire emissions. The aim was to optimize the workflow by extracting relevant chemical information from the analysed matrix and mitigate bias in reported results. Tests were thus performed to optimize sample preparation for fish and dust samples as well as processing data from high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis of dust, AFFFs and fire emissions.Statistical analysis such as analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the help of hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) enabled the detection of outliers in dust, AFFFs, and gas and soot from fire emissions. Mass defect (MD) plot analysis further enabled the detection of various relevant compounds according to their functional groups and structural properties. The nontarget analysis workflow was supported by target and suspect screening analysis to confirm the efficiency of the optimized overall workflow. Various classes of compounds could be detected and tentatively identified such as flame retardants, liquid crystal monomers or bisphenols in dust samples, organofluorine and fluorine-free surfactants in AFFFs, and flame retardants and hydrocarbons in gas and soot samples .Quality controls were also performed to assess the performance of the optimized workflow.
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| 6. |
- Dulio, Valeria, et al.
(författare)
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Beyond target chemicals : updating the NORMAN prioritisation scheme to support the EU chemicals strategy with semi-quantitative suspect/non-target screening data
- 2024
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Ingår i: Environmental Sciences Europe. - : Springer Nature. - 2190-4707 .- 2190-4715. ; 36:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Prioritisation of chemical pollutants is a major challenge for environmental managers and decision-makers alike, which is essential to help focus the limited resources available for monitoring and mitigation actions on the most relevant chemicals. This study extends the original NORMAN prioritisation scheme beyond target chemicals, presenting the integration of semi-quantitative data from retrospective suspect screening and expansion of existing exposure and risk indicators. The scheme utilises data retrieved automatically from the NORMAN Database System (NDS), including candidate substances for prioritisation, target and suspect screening data, ecotoxicological effect data, physico-chemical data and other properties. Two complementary workflows using target and suspect screening monitoring data are applied to first group the substances into six action categories and then rank the substances using exposure, hazard and risk indicators. The results from the ‘target’ and ‘suspect screening’ workflows can then be combined as multiple lines of evidence to support decision-making on regulatory and research actions.Results: As a proof-of-concept, the new scheme was applied to a combined dataset of target and suspect screening data. To this end, > 65,000 substances on the NDS, of which 2579 substances supported by target wastewater monitoring data, were retrospectively screened in 84 effluent wastewater samples, totalling > 11 million data points. The final prioritisation results identified 677 substances as high priority for further actions, 7455 as medium priority and 326 with potentially lower priority for actions. Among the remaining substances, ca. 37,000 substances should be considered of medium priority with uncertainty, while it was not possible to conclude for 19,000 substances due to insufficient information from target monitoring and uncertainty in the identification from suspect screening. A high degree of agreement was observed between the categories assigned via target analysis and suspect screening-based prioritisation. Suspect screening was a valuable complementary approach to target analysis, helping to prioritise thousands of substances that are insufficiently investigated in current monitoring programmes.Conclusions: This updated prioritisation workflow responds to the increasing use of suspect screening techniques. It can be adapted to different environmental compartments and can support regulatory obligations, including the identification of specific pollutants in river basins and the marine environments, as well as the confirmation of environmental occurrence levels predicted by modelling tools. Graphical Abstract: (Figure presented.)
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| 7. |
- Dulio, Valeria, et al.
(författare)
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The NORMAN Association and the European Partnership for Chemicals Risk Assessment (PARC) : let’s cooperate!
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environmental Sciences Europe. - : Springer. - 2190-4707 .- 2190-4715. ; 32:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Partnership for Chemicals Risk Assessment (PARC) is currently under development as a joint research and innovation programme to strengthen the scientific basis for chemical risk assessment in the EU. The plan is to bring chemical risk assessors and managers together with scientists to accelerate method development and the production of necessary data and knowledge, and to facilitate the transition to next-generation evidence-based risk assessment, a non-toxic environment and the European Green Deal. The NORMAN Network is an independent, well-established and competent network of more than 80 organisations in the field of emerging substances and has enormous potential to contribute to the implementation of the PARC partnership. NORMAN stands ready to provide expert advice to PARC, drawing on its long experience in the development, harmonisation and testing of advanced tools in relation to chemicals of emerging concern and in support of a European Early Warning System to unravel the risks of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and close the gap between research and innovation and regulatory processes. In this commentary we highlight the tools developed by NORMAN that we consider most relevant to supporting the PARC initiative: (i) joint data space and cutting-edge research tools for risk assessment of contaminants of emerging concern; (ii) collaborative European framework to improve data quality and comparability; (iii) advanced data analysis tools for a European early warning system and (iv) support to national and European chemical risk assessment thanks to harnessing, combining and sharing evidence and expertise on CECs. By combining the extensive knowledge and experience of the NORMAN network with the financial and policy-related strengths of the PARC initiative, a large step towards the goal of a non-toxic environment can be taken.
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| 8. |
- Dürig, Wiebke, et al.
(författare)
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What is in the fish? Collaborative trial in suspect and non-target screening of organic micropollutants using LC- and GC-HRMS
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environment International. - : Elsevier. - 0160-4120 .- 1873-6750. ; 181
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A collaborative trial involving 16 participants from nine European countries was conducted within the NORMAN network in efforts to harmonise suspect and non-target screening of environmental contaminants in whole fish samples of bream (Abramis brama). Participants were provided with freeze-dried, homogenised fish samples from a contaminated and a reference site, extracts (spiked and non-spiked) and reference sample preparation protocols for liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Participants extracted fish samples using their in-house sample preparation method and/or the protocol provided. Participants correctly identified 9–69 % of spiked compounds using LC-HRMS and 20–60 % of spiked compounds using GC-HRMS. From the contaminated site, suspect screening with participants’ own suspect lists led to putative identification of on average ∼145 and ∼20 unique features per participant using LC-HRMS and GC-HRMS, respectively, while non-target screening identified on average ∼42 and ∼56 unique features per participant using LC-HRMS and GC-HRMS, respectively. Within the same sub-group of sample preparation method, only a few features were identified by at least two participants in suspect screening (16 features using LC-HRMS, 0 features using GC-HRMS) and non-target screening (0 features using LC-HRMS, 2 features using GC-HRMS). The compounds identified had log octanol/water partition coefficient (KOW) values from −9.9 to 16 and mass-to-charge ratios (m/z) of 68 to 761 (LC-HRMS and GC-HRMS). A significant linear trend was found between log KOW and m/z for the GC-HRMS data. Overall, these findings indicate that differences in screening results are mainly due to the data analysis workflows used by different participants. Further work is needed to harmonise the results obtained when applying suspect and non-target screening approaches to environmental biota samples.
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| 9. |
- Hollender, Juliane, et al.
(författare)
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NORMAN guidance on suspect and non-target screening in environmental monitoring
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental Sciences Europe. - : Springer Nature. - 2190-4707 .- 2190-4715. ; 35:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increasing production and use of chemicals and awareness of their impact on ecosystems and humans has led to large interest for broadening the knowledge on the chemical status of the environment and human health by suspect and non-target screening (NTS). To facilitate effective implementation of NTS in scientific, commercial and governmental laboratories, as well as acceptance by managers, regulators and risk assessors, more harmonisation in NTS is required. To address this, NORMAN Association members involved in NTS activities have prepared this guidance document, based on the current state of knowledge. The document is intended to provide guidance on performing high quality NTS studies and data interpretation while increasing awareness of the promise but also pitfalls and challenges associated with these techniques. Guidance is provided for all steps; from sampling and sample preparation to analysis by chromatography (liquid and gas-LC and GC) coupled via various ionisation techniques to high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (HRMS/MS), through to data evaluation and reporting in the context of NTS. Although most experience within the NORMAN network still involves water analysis of polar compounds using LC-HRMS/MS, other matrices (sediment, soil, biota, dust, air) and instrumentation (GC, ion mobility) are covered, reflecting the rapid development and extension of the field. Due to the ongoing developments, the different questions addressed with NTS and manifold techniques in use, NORMAN members feel that no standard operation process can be provided at this stage. However, appropriate analytical methods, data processing techniques and databases commonly compiled in NTS workflows are introduced, their limitations are discussed and recommendations for different cases are provided. Proper quality assurance, quantification without reference standards and reporting results with clear confidence of identification assignment complete the guidance together with a glossary of definitions. The NORMAN community greatly supports the sharing of experiences and data via open science and hopes that this guideline supports this effort.
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| 10. |
- Jaeger, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Using recirculating flumes and a response surface model to investigate the role of hyporheic exchange and bacterial diversity on micropollutant half-lives
- 2019
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Ingår i: Environmental Science. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2050-7887 .- 2050-7895. ; 21:12, s. 2093-2108
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Enhancing the understanding of the fate of wastewater-derived organic micropollutants in rivers is crucial to improve risk assessment, regulatory decision making and river management. Hyporheic exchange and sediment bacterial diversity are two factors gaining increasing importance as drivers for micropollutant degradation, but are complex to study in field experiments and usually ignored in laboratory tests aimed to estimate environmental half-lives. Flume mesocosms are useful to investigate micropollutant degradation processes, bridging the gap between the field and batch experiments. However, few studies have used flumes in this context. We present a novel experimental setup using 20 recirculating flumes and a response surface model to study the influence of hyporheic exchange and sediment bacterial diversity on half-lives of the anti-epileptic drug carbamazepine (CBZ) and the artificial sweetener acesulfame (ACS). The effect of bedform-induced hyporheic exchange was tested by three treatment levels differing in number of bedforms (0, 3 and 6). Three levels of sediment bacterial diversity were obtained by diluting sediment from the River Erpe in Berlin, Germany, with sand (1 : 10, 1 : 1000 and 1 : 100 000). Our results show that ACS half-lives were significantly influenced by sediment dilution and number of bedforms. Half-lives of CBZ were higher than ACS, and were significantly affected only by the sediment dilution variable, and thus by bacterial diversity. Our results show that (1) the flume-setup is a useful tool to study the fate of micropollutants in rivers, and that (2) higher hyporheic exchange and bacterial diversity in the sediment can increase the degradation of micropollutants in rivers.
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