Vibrational Spectroscopy for Analysis of Water for Human Use and in Aquatic Ecosystems

Abstract

Maintaining a clean water supply is one of the key challenges facing humanity today. Pollution, rising population, and climate change are just some of the factors putting increased pressure on limited water resources. Contamination of the water supply presents a high risk to public health, security, and the environment; nevertheless, no adequate real-time methods exist to detect the wide range of potential contaminants. There is a need for rapid, low-cost, multitarget systems for water quality monitoring. Information-rich, multivariate techniques such as vibrational spectroscopy have been proposed for this purpose. The authors present developments in the applications of vibrational (near infrared, mid-infrared, and Raman) spectroscopy to water quality monitoring over the past 20 years, identify emerging technologies, and discuss future challenges.

KEY WORDS:

• continuous
• infrared
• monitoring
• quality
• Raman spectroscopy
• real-time
• spectroscopy
• vibrational
• water

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A. A. Gowen acknowledges funding from the EU FP7 under the Marie Curie Outgoing International Fellowship.