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A new method of simultaneously measuring 71 inorganic elements in liquids – including water, beverages and body fluids – makes element testing much faster, more efficient and more complete than was possible in the past.
The researchers studied liquid samples from various sources around the world, including tap water from a suburb of New York, snow from Italy and Croatia, rains from Brazil and Pakistan, lake water from Switzerland and Croatia and seawater from Japan and Brazil. The test of each sample produces a distinct elemental pattern, creating a "fingerprint" that can help differentiate the substances or find a liquid that goes back to its environmental origin.
The method – developed by researchers at the NYU College of Dentistry isotope lab and described in the journal RSC advances, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry – can be used to explore and understand the distribution of inorganic elements beyond the few commonly measured components. This has implications for areas such as nutrition, ecology and climate, as well as environmental health.
An analytical technique called Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) is used to measure elements. Historically, the ICP-MS instruments measured elements sequentially or one by one, but a new type of ICP-MS instrument at the NYU College of Dentistry and in about two dozen other locations around the world was measuring the full range of inorganic elements. all at once.
"With this new method, our mass spectrometer can simultaneously measure all the inorganic elements from lithium to uranium.We are able to measure the elements in much less time, at a much lower cost, using a lot of less material, "said Timothy Bromage, professor. biomaterials and basic science and craniofacial biology at NYU College of Dentistry and the lead author of the study.
This technological breakthrough can help fill gaps in our understanding of distributions and concentrations of elements in substances such as water. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency monitors and sets maximum concentration limits for 19 elements in drinking water considered to pose a health risk, but many elements known to have health consequences – such as lithium or tin – are not monitored or regulated.
"Basic mapping of concentration levels in bottled water and in tap water could help us better understand the" normal "concentration levels of most elements in water." said Bromage.
Bromage and colleagues have designed a method of simultaneous use of ICP-MS technology to detect 71 elements of the inorganic spectrum involving a specific set of calibrations and internal standards. The method, for which they have a patent pending, regularly detects elements in seconds to minutes and in samples as small as 1 to 4 milliliters.
Bromage and its research team tested the method on water, beverages and biological samples. The snow contained most elements of a water sample: 50 in the snow collected in Italy and 42 in a sample from Croatia. "Such snow assessments could be a new and comprehensive way to investigate atmospheric element concentrations and monitor the characteristics of global air flows," said Bromage.
During the tap water test, researchers measured 37 elements at the first tap start, but only 34 elements after five minutes of water operation, suggesting that items such as iron and zinc may be leached from domestic pipes by water.
The researchers also measured elements in bottled water, beer, wine and milk, as well as in saliva, urine and blood samples. Milk was distinguished from other drinks tested by its high concentrations of titanium, zinc, palladium and gold.
In each sample, Bromage and his team found a separate "fingerprint" or elemental pattern, suggesting that the samples can be recognized and differentiated by these patterns. The elemental content of water, for example, usually reflects its natural environment. Therefore, to understand its composition can tell us if the water comes from a source of volcanic rock or limestone, an alkaline rock. In bottled water, the researchers observed variations likely attributable to bottling at the source and the other to chlorination for transporting the source to the bottling plant.
Future studies will measure and report larger samples of water, wine, milk and other fluids; a study of more than 1000 wines from 34 countries is underway. In addition, once the basic models for specific environments have been established, the method can be applied to answer questions in areas that link the past to the past, such as paleoenvironment and climate change.
"The water is an arbiter of the actual functioning of a system.If you sample the water from a pond or river and measure the elements, you measure the elements that become incorporated into all life – water feeds plants, animals eat plants, we eat plants and animals.We could use this knowledge to study human fossils and potentially retract what the nature of the plant is. The region's water accounted for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years ago, "said Bromage.
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