Monitoring of micropollutants in urban aquatic environment and evaluation of watershed based on the monitoring data.
Group members
Assoc. Prof. Norihide Nakada
Head of Group
CV
Research
Huge amounts of chemicals are used in our daily life and some of them escape from current wastewater treatments and are discharged to the aquatic environment. Although these chemicals do not show acute or lethal toxicities, pharmaceuticals in particular affect the reproductive organs and behavior of fish. The number of pharmaceuticals used is forecasted to increase due to factors including the aging population and the impact of epidemic/pandemic (e.g. COVID-19) on mental health. Therefore, we are studying the development of analytical methods for emerging micropollutants and their transformation products by target analysis using LC-MS/MS, identification of unknown transformation products by non-target analysis using LC-QTof/MS, and evaluation of the detected concentration from the perspective of environmental toxicology. In addition, due to the stable usage of pharmaceuticals, we are studying indicators to estimate the population and number of patients in a watershed and the treatment level of water plumes in rivers among the pharmaceuticals analyzed as wastewater-based epidemiology, in the field of Environment Forensics.Research Topic
- 1）Development of analytical methods for emerging micropollutants based on mass spectrometry.
- 2）Monitoring of micropollutants in the aquatic environment, including water reclamation facilities.
- 3）Evaluation of current and newly developed water treatment systems for removing micropollutants.
- 4）Evaluation of the occurrence of micropollutants from the perspective of environmental toxicology.
- 5）Evaluation of watersheds based on the monitoring data.