What’s in our water? A Chemical Detective Story

What’s in our water? Should I drink from the tap? Plastic bottles? Metal? Glass? Which chemicals are bad for me? Which ones are bad for the environment? What are “forever chemicals” and are they really around forever? Easy questions that are not always easy to answer. Just like people, chemicals can be good and bad, or something in between (and just like with some people, this can change depending on the context!). High profile media coverage of contamination, such as claims we are “eating a credit card worth of plastic a day”, can raise public awareness but also perturb the public opinion on risk and potentially distract from other problems. Regulation of some chemicals can lead to so-called “regrettable substitution”, where the replacement chemical can cause similar problems to the banned substance, keeping producers and consumers caught in a vicious cycle.

So how do we try to find out which chemicals are really problematic? How can we avoid regrettable substitution and maintain our current lifestyle while reducing chemical exposure? How can we ensure our water remains safe to drink? How do we know if treatment will be effective enough?

This talk will take the audience on a chemical detective story, to show how researchers try to answer these questions and more. As with criminal investigations, this involves databases with fingerprints (i.e. mass spectra) of chemicals, other databases containing potential “suspects” without fingerprints. Further efforts are used to predict how chemicals might disguise themselves (aka transform) in the environment, making themselves harder to find, and whether they are more or less toxic after treatment. Several examples from around Europe and the world will be used to how our research in Luxembourg, together with national and international collaborators, can help fellow researchers answer many questions through the development of community resources, data sharing and a whole lot of joint detective work!