Anthropogenic Marker

Abstract

Natural organic matter (NOM) is an extremely complex mixture of organic substances, which is the most abundant form of organic carbon in the earth's surficial environment. It is also a reactive material that plays an important role in controlling contaminant fate and transport. Its complexity, though, hampers the study of its interaction mechanisms with contaminants. Through its ability to selectively excite and observe nuclei such as 1H, 13C, and 19F, NMR has the potential to provide information that is capable of describing the specific interactions of a contaminant with NOM as well as identify and characterize contaminant transformation products. This review summarizes recent advances in solution-and solid-state NMRs that have explored this topic. Recent progress applying multidimensional and multipulse sequences is discussed.