Published on April 9, 2014
A group of engineers have embarked upon a quest to determine the long-term effects of chemicals in the drinking water distribution system and the environment. The team has been granted a $50,000 National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research grant and aims to understand the properties of crude 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM).
The research team includes associate professor Daniel Gallagher, assistant professor Robert Scardina, senior analytical chemist Jody Smiley of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Andrea Dietrich, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.
MCHM, an industrial chemical mixture, is utilized during separation and cleaning of coal products. The West Virginia spill resulted in a chemical leakage of over 10,000 gallons, which entered the river upstream of a water-treatment plant. The chemical leaked from a storage tank near Charleston, contaminating the drinking water of more than 300,000 West Virginia residents. The spill occurred on 9th January and the water restrictions were lifted on 13th January. However, residents continue to detect the odour of MCHM.
Dietrich said, “Residents were alerted by a strong licorice odour that led many people to think at first that the air was polluted. In that respect, consumers are important sentinels for exposure to low levels of MCHM."
Researchers are not completely aware about the short-term and long-term effects of this chemical in the water system. This team hopes to determine basic chemical properties that will enable them to approximate human exposure by means of drinking water and indoor air pollution.
They will also study factors like is MCHM interacts with plastic pipe and epoxy liners in water tanks. The research will help develop certain remediation measures for the water system.
The research team involved engineering students to build up analytical chemical methods that secluded the 6 key components in the crude mixture and to identify their chemical structures. Having identified the chemicals, the students looked into government and industrial records. However, they couldn’t find anything useful about the properties of the compounds, which pushed them to ace modelling techniques in order to guess the toxicity and interaction with drinking water pipes and plumbing. This exercise helped the students expand their knowledge and make significant civic contributions
"We will share what we learn with the scientific and engineering communities for future planning, and with citizens who want to understand more about the effect of this chemical on the water supply," said Dietrich.
