title: Measurement of protein-like fluorescence in river and waste water using a handheld spectrophotometer.
abstract: Protein-like fluorescence intensity in rivers increases with increasing anthropogenic DOM inputs from sewerage and farm wastes. Here, a portable luminescence spectrophotometer was used to investigate if this technology could be used to provide both field scientists with a rapid pollution monitoring tool and process control engineers with a portable waste water monitoring device, through the measurement of river and waste water tryptophan-like fluorescence from a range of rivers in NE England and from effluents from within two waste water treatment plants. The portable spectrophotometer determined that waste waters and sewerage effluents had the highest tryptophan-like fluorescence intensity, urban streams had an intermediate tryptophan-like fluorescence intensity, and the upstream river samples of good water quality the lowest tryptophan-like fluorescence intensity. Replicate samples demonstrated that fluorescence intensity is reproducible to +/- 20% for low fluorescence, 'clean' river water samples and +/- 5% for urban water and waste waters. Correlations between fluorescence measured by the portable spectrophotometer with a conventional bench machine were 0.91; (Spearman's rho, n = 143), demonstrating that the portable spectrophotometer does correlate with tryptophan-like fluorescence intensity measured using the bench spectrophotometer.
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. a.baker.2@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.forename: Shakti H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Lieten
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Periera
authors.forename: Ellie C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.forename: Malcolm
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Slater
mesh_terms: D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005453:Fluorescence; D011506:Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D045483:Rivers; D013053:Spectrophotometry / Q000295:instrumentation; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid; D014881:Water Supply
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins