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Content archived on 2024-04-19

Pesticides and their metabolites - Characterization and monitoring in surface and groundwater by combined chemical analysis (GC/MS, FAB/MS, APCI/MS, MS/MS) and bioassays (toxicity, genotoxicity, biodegradability)

Objective

To develop a strategy based on the combination of chemical-analytical techniques and bioassays for the characterisation of pesticides and their degradation products.


Pesticides, their degradation products and additionally substances found in ground and surface water have to be controlled. The analytical techniques being used today comply only insufficiently with the requirements.

New and selective extraction and fractionation techniques have to be developed, which in combination with selective and specific analytical techniques like FAB/MS, APCI/MS and MS/MS allow the determination of anthropogenic compounds and their biochemical degradation products. This is especially necessary for polar compounds because of the insufficient analytical techniques. It must be emphasized that the biochemical degradation products (metabolites) of pesticides become more polar in the aquatic environment than their precursors. Polar compounds have been made responsible for the main part of toxicity established in extracted polar fractions in aquatic samples.

At the same time bioassay systems and concentration and fractionation techniques to be used prior to bioassays have to be developed and optimized. Bioassays on aquatic concentrates provide a direct functional response which relates to the overall toxic properties (including genotoxicity) of the mixture of compounds to be characterized. The biodegradability of the toxic components will be assessed.

This project investigates the possibility to combine the above analytical techniques with bioassay systems to better characterize the polar compounds.

Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

AACHEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
EU contribution
No data
Address
Templergraben 55
52056 AACHEN
Germany

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Total cost
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Participants (2)