Walk out of the lab, put the keys in the ignition and drive.  Those are among three of the new methods that Dr. Krogh and his team of student scientists at Vancouver Island University are adding to their environmental chemistry playbook.  Working outside of the lab is a rare thing for a chemist, an opportunity made possible by an emerging technology called mobile mass spectrometry (MMS). MMS is driven by recent advancements that have drastically scaled down the size of mass spectrometry devices from the size of a room to a mini-fridge sized format.  Thanks to further advancements in membrane technology, MMS equipment can except samples straight from the source. Dirty produced water from a fracking operation? No problem! Simply collect a sample from the field, ionize it, and send ions through the built in mass spectrometry chamber. No taking the sample back to the lab or preparation required.

The ability to collect and process samples in real time opens up exciting new possibilities for environmental monitoring and holds important implications for human health.  As a bicycle commuter in an industrial town where big diesel trucks reign supreme, I was immediately drawn to Dr. Krogh’s work on air quality. Although he broke the bad news that  I couldn’t quite fit even his smallest unit on my bicycle just yet, direct in-situ air quality measurements provide a valuable means of documenting the spatial distributions of pollutants from their source to the populations and communities that they impact.  Pollutant distribution is constantly changing due to weather patterns, variation in industrial activity, natural disturbance processes and temporal variation in traffic patterns. Someday real time, geo-referenced air quality information could be used to detect when and where concentrations of pollutants are particularly high and what the health impacts might be based on the offending compounds.  By filling in that gaps that point sampling might miss, information systems can be generated with the ability to detect brief but dangerous concentrations of pollutants in areas that might be missed by point sampling.

Data could then be integrated into an interactive online interface that would enable people to know when and where it is safe to go outside.   From a public health perspective, regulators could use MMS inputs to establish industry and transportation guidelines that limit emissions during atmospheric conditions that prevent adequate dispersal.Here Dr. Krogh pointed to in interesting example from one of his mobile road trips where at a construction traffic stop they fired up their MMS units and found that the workers laying the asphalt were subjected to unsafe levels of volatile organic compounds.  For the purposes of my commute MMS would enable me to make an informed decisions on my biking route according to the best pockets of air so I am not drowning in fumes as I am huffing and puffing away.

As an emerging technology, I appreciated Dr. Krogh and his team’s efforts to properly calibrate MMS machinery and assess its limitations.  Early tests involved “supervised trials” where MMS units sampled known pollution sources such as a gas station and tested for accuracy. Once units had been calibrated to a baseline precision, “unsupervised” tests were performed by driving the mobile unit through an urban area, collecting samples with no specific target.  Even now that the accuracy of MMS units has been established, MMS units are still constanting monitored and calibrated by inputting and measuring known quantities of toluene.

MMS offers amazing real time opportunities to assess  and improve environmental quality. I very much appreciate Dr. Krogh and team’s advancement of the field and I look forward to to seeing how the technology progresses.  The only sticking point that I see with the technology is that the mobile van used is sampling in diesel powered. Hopefully they can write in money for an electric vehicle into their next grant proposal!