Heads up! Best Practices for Non-Targeted Analysis (BP4NTA) is hosting a session at SETAC North America in Montreal this November. The session is titled “Non-targeted analysis and high-resolution mass spectrometry in environmental chemistry.” Keep an eye out when you’re submitting your abstracts!
As high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) becomes more accessible, its application in environmental chemistry is exponentially increasing. Notably, HRMS has expanded the use of non-targeted analysis (NTA), enabling studies without a pre-defined list of analytes and/or that seek to detect and identify chemicals for which analytical standards may not be available. HRMS– based NTA is especially valuable for the discovery of new contaminants or transformation products, as well as “exposomic” research aiming to characterize a broad range of chemical mixtures across diverse environmental and biological matrices. While these methods are already producing valuable data and insights, challenges remain. For example, there is still need for improvements in study reproducibility and reporting practices, and expanding access to high‑quality spectral libraries, reference databases, and computational tools. This session will highlight recent advances in HRMS and NTA methods, discuss shortcomings that have yet to be addressed, and showcase novel environmental studies/applications utilizing these techniques.
Many thanks to Sara Nason, Carrie McDonough, Natalia Quinete, and Leenia Mukhopadhyay for putting this together!