My name is Lisa
McAnulty, and I am currently a junior working towards a B.S. in Chemistry with
a concentration in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry. This Fall semester,
I am continuing my research from my intensive summer group project under the
advisement of Dr. Huff and Dr. Foster. This project involved looking at
pharmaceuticals and personal care products in Potomac River water and sediment
samples. This is an important issue because wastewater treatment plants are
currently not regulated to remove these emerging contaminants before releasing
their effluent back into the environment. Over the summer, we found significant
levels of several pharmaceuticals and personal care products in sediment
samples collected from Hunting Creek and Gunston Cove. Of these, the most
notable were caffeine, a metabolite of venlafaxine, and a metabolite of
nicotine. This semester, I am continuing the quantitative analysis of the
samples collected to determine how much of other pharmaceuticals and personal
care products are in the water and sediment samples.
Recently, our
lab moved into the Potomac Science Center located in Belmont Bay. The average
week involves creating calibration standards and spiking solutions, which will
both be used for quantification and quality control. There is one more sampling
trip out on the River planned, where more sediment and water samples will be
collected from Gunston Cove and Dogue Creek. After collection, the water and
sediment are put through an extraction process that pulls the target analytes
out of the samples, at which point they can then be run on our instrument.The analytical
instrument being used for this project, the LC-MS, is a powerful tool that has
many applications in research. I am really excited for the chance to be able to
familiarize myself with its operation, and I hope to continue along the
environmental analytical chemistry path.
