Development of chemosensors for endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs): synthesis and evaluation of solid-phase bound receptors

Worldwide concern has been growing on the increasing distribution of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) during the last decade. The overall anxiety is caused by their effect on the endocrine system of wildlife and humans. While the influence on the reproductive systems of several animals has been thoroughly documented, the effects on human health are still the subject of intense debate. Establishing a causal relationship between the presence of EDCs in the environment and their possible effects on human health is a challenging quest. Besides their low physiologically active concentrations, the complex environmental matrices in which they are present, makes it very difficult to identify and quantify different EDCs. This problem can be tackled by a pre-concentration step before the actual analysis. In general, solid-phase extraction (SPE) of aqueous samples is a widly applied technique to enrich pollutants. With the current SPE cartridges, the extraction efficiency of the pollutants depends on their polarity. Thus polar compounds stay in the water sample while apolar compounds are retained on the solid phase. As a consequence the selectivity of the SPE is poor. A solid-phase material which could selectively bind the different EDCs would thus greatly simplify the analysis. This PhD will focus on the development of an artificial receptor that shows high affinity towards common EDCs and low or no affinity to other compounds present in environmental samples. By constructing this receptor on a solid phase, a new affinity based SPE material can be developed, resulting in a more accurate and selective determination of EDCs.

Author dc:creator

• Van der Plas, Steven

Contributors dc:contributor

• Madder, Annemieke

• Chemistry
• EDC
• solid phase
• estrogen receptor

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/505579
https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/505579/file/4334910

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:archive.ugent.be:505579