This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
With this award from the Major Research and Instrumentation (MRI) program, Steven Lev and colleagues Ellen Hondrogiannis, Ryan Casey and Joel Snodgrass of Towson University will acquire an inductively coupled plasma-time of flight-mass spectrometer (ICP-TOF-MS), which will expand the research capabilities of the Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (UEBL). The new instrument will be coupled with an existing Laser Ablation (LA) system in the UEBL. Projects to be undertaken with this instrumentation include evaluation of the life history of brown bullhead catfish, investigation of the uptake of roadway zinc by earthworms, determination of the metal signatures of precursors to certain neurotoxins, and identification of the geographic origins of black pepper spices.
An inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer is a type of mass spectrometer that uses a high-energy plasma to generate ions. The masses of the ions produced are measured by the mass spectrometer providing an elemental analysis of the sample. The use of a laser pulse to ablate the sample combined with the high detection speed of TOF enables a complete trace metal analysis with a single laser pulse. The instrumentation provided by this award will allow undergraduate students significant research experiences and provide them with high-quality instruction on the use of modern instrumentation.
This grant funded the acquisition of an Inductively Coupled Plasma Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (ICP-TOF-MS) in the Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry at Towson University. Foremost, our work resulted in the training of highly qualified undergraduates and graduate students in research techniques applicable to careers in analytical chemistry, forensic chemistry, environmental chemistry, materials chemistry and geochemistry. In three years we trained 7 graduate students and 5 undergraduate students in research techniques, but more importantly, gave them experience as professional scientists. Of these 12 students, 9 are women and 1 comes from an under-represented minority in science. The students involved were presenters, co-authors or key contributors to 16 presentations at local, region and national conferences, 1 peer-reviewed published paper, 1 conference proceeding, 3 manuscripts in review and 3 manuscripts that are in the final stages of preparation prior to submission. In terms of our research outcomes, our work has contributed to the areas of analytical chemistry, toxicology, forensic chemistry and environmental geochemistry. First, work recently published in the Royal Society of Chemistry Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry highlights methods we developed for Laser Ablation ICP-TOF-MS (LA-ICP-TOF-MS) involving the use of enriched stable isotopes to track the fate of trace metals in the terrestrial environment. This approach is currently being applied to another NSF funded project that seeks to characterize the fate of ZnO nanoparticles in soil systems. In the area of forensics, we have made excellent progress in two areas; the development of LA-ICP-TOF-MS as a standard method used in identifying the geographic origin of spices like cumin and food products like vanilla and, in the forensic applicability of LA-ICP-TOF-MS for screening automotive paint evidence from hit-and-run crime scenes. Work from the cumin project has been presented and a manuscript is in review for publication in Spectrochimica Acta Part B. The last project where we have made significant progress in environmental geochemistry is the application of LA-ICP-TOF-MS for characterization of carbon capture sequestration host rocks to aid in evaluating risk associated with toxins that could potentially be released from the host rocks to ground water during long-term carbon storage. This work is a new collaboration with colleagues from the Colorado School of Mines and has already provided critical data in support of a USEPA STAR grant to PIs at CSM.
