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Breakout Session #2
Cross-sector groupings of the participants were formed to discuss prospects and barriers
to adoption of field compatible trace metal analytical systems as framed by the following
questions:
III.
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR LIMITATIONS TO CURRENT AND FUTURE
APPLICATIONS OF
IN SITU
METAL SENSORS? ARE THERE ALTERNATE
TECHNOLOGIES THAT COULD BE LEVERAGED FOR THIS PURPOSE?
Group Chairs, Eric Crecelius, Bob Byrne, Drew Sweetak
Rapporteurs: Michael Callahan, James Downing, Ian Walsh
Plenary session reports from the second breakout session revealed consensus on several obstacles
to the adoption of new technologies facilitating high resolution monitoring of trace metals in
aquatic environments. First, the group strongly felt that low societal awareness of the importance
of metal speciation to biological systems needs to be overcome, mainly by increased
communication within the scientific community and regulatory agencies. This is a critical issue
since development of regulatory standards is not based on scientific study alone. Public demand
also has a roll in this process. Increasing investment in outreach activities from expert scientific
groups like GeoTraces (
www.geotraces.org
) could be used to enhance public awareness of not
only the toxic, but also the vital functions of metals in the earth ecosystem. Investment in
additional targeted studies of metal speciation behavior, directly coupled to multiple level
ecological assessments (i.e., microbes, phytoplankton and higher trophic levels) would help
strengthen the database, identifying free and liable metal fractions as the bioactive forms
(including positive and negative effects). This information is critical to disseminate to regulatory
decision makers governing the adoption of new analytical technologies into compliance
monitoring programs. Without the impetus of regulatory guidelines and standards, as well as
acceptance of methods, the likelihood of extensive investment in new R&D for
commercialization by the private sector is low. An alternative strategy would be to identify cross-
over uses for the technology such as biomedical diagnostics and industrial process control and
waste processing.
A second related obstacle is that the analytical approaches developed and employed by the
scientific community are highly customized, difficult to use and rarely cross-standardized; this in
part is evidenced by the plethora of voltammetric techniques in practice. Technology
demonstrations could serve in part to overcome these misperceptions. Incorporation of some
these analytical approaches into regional citizen WQ monitoring events (e.g.
MBNMS Citizen
Watershed Monitoring Network
) would serve the dual function of increasing public awareness
and perhaps widespread adoption.
Additionally, development of robust and user friendly instrument control and data analysis
algorithms would facilitate the transfer of these technologies to operational use. Related to the
issue of customization, is the fact that few of the available technologies are multi-element capable
without sacrificing analytical precision and cannot analyze critical elements like Hg. Promoting
advancements in analytical chemistry for the synthesis of novel metal-species specific ligands,
ACT Workshop on Trace Metal Sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14