Grant: Major Resources Support Program - Infrastructure

The Worsfold Water Quality Centre (WWQC) at Trent University is an integrated multidisciplinary facility that utilizes state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation in the study of environmental chemistry. The Centre focuses on methods that utilize mass spectrometry; users of the Centre conduct research on both new methods for environmental analysis and applications of these methods in the natural environment. The facility combines capabilities in both the inorganic and organic chemistry fields, allowing the researchers to study a very wide range of issues and many specific contaminants. This diversity in capability of the equipment, and the diversity of the researchers from the many universities and institutes who collaborate with the Centre, make the WWQC unique. Although the Centre focuses on water quality issues, the facilities are valuable to scientists from other fields including geology, biochemistry, biology, anthropology and terrestrial ecology. Some examples of the types of research being undertaken at the Centre include the study of the release of pharmaceuticals from waste water treatment facilities, the study of fluorine-containing contaminants in the atmosphere, the cycling of trace metal contaminants in the environment, the relative importance of various sources of mercury entering our lakes, the role of microbial processes on the production of greenhouse gases and development of new methods to measure radioactive elements in the environment. The Facility is utilized by scientists from universities, government and the private sector, both nationally and internationally. Altough the Centre's greatest impact on research and development is in the province of Ontario, where the Centre has provided analytical services for research and development concerning water quality issues, it is internationally recognized as being on the leading edge in environmental analyses.