Nitr-O-zon

The occurrence of N-nitrosamines is an important public health issue. Due to their good solubility in water, they enter the aquatic environment via industrial and municipal input pathways. They are also formed as transformation products in various (waste) water treatment processes. For companies, they are a major problem due to their carcinogenic potential, their diversity, and their versatile occurrence due to frequent formation in technical processes. With the requirements for product safety and environmental protection, the demands for analytics, risk prevention and elimination of these substances are increasing.
In this project, the Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences is to develop a sensitive, sufficiently selective, economical, and on-site analytical method with sample preparation that can be automated as much as possible for the ultra-trace detection of N-nitrosamines in (waste) water. The selection, further development, optimisation, and automation of suitable sample preparation steps is absolutely necessary for the enrichment of nitrosamines and thus for achieving the required detection sensitivity in the one- to two-digit ppt range for (waste) water analysis. In addition, it is to be tested whether the developed method can also be reliably applied to a broad spectrum of product matrices across different industries. At the Institut für Energie und Umwelttechnik, as a second research aspect, the elimination of N-nitrosamines downstream of the fourth purification stage with the oxidative process ozone is to be intensively investigated and, with the knowledge gained from both research aspects, the treatment of wastewater is to be improved with regard to nitrosamine formation. The analytical technique of LC-MS will be used for this purpose.
The project is designed for a cross-sectoral potential of use, e.g. for manufacturers of analytical systems and automated solutions, sewage treatment plants, producers in wastewater technology, specialised analytical laboratories, chemical, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries as well as the food industry.
Funding information
The research project of the Research Association for Environmental Technology is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy via the AiF within the framework of the programme for the promotion of joint industrial research and development (IGF) on the basis of a resolution of the German Bundestag.

Funding code: 20487 N