Annemarie van Wezel

• Research Director at University of Amsterdam

Orthopedic hip implant failure due to adverse events, such as infection, are still a major problem leading to high morbidity and mortality. Over the years, various innovative biomaterials have been investigated to improve safety and functionality of implants. Although novel biomaterials show initial promising results, many fail at the (later) stage...

Organic micropollutants (OMPs) in the aquatic environment challenge conventional water treatment processes. Advanced oxidation processes, such as UV photolysis, serve as effective strategies to remove OMPs. However, these often yield unknown transformation products (TPs). High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS)-based non-target analysis (NTA) is c...

While wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent offers a potential alternative source for irrigation, the fate of organic micropollutants (OMPs), including transformation products (TPs), in effluent-irrigated fields remains largely unknown. Using non-target analysis (NTA), we investigated OMPs in WWTP effluent and their distribution throughout a f...

Psychopharmaceuticals are used to treat psychological disorders and other conditions relating to the nervous system and are known to affect nontarget organisms at low concentrations. Their occurrence in the water cycle remains an understudied topic, with data lacking for many compounds, and risks not accounted for in removal targets. Therefore, thi...

Despite the widespread presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in freshwater environments, only a few studies have addressed their bioaccumulation in macrophytes and benthic invertebrates. This study therefore aimed at investigating the presence of 40 PFAS in sediments, assessing their bioaccumulation in a rooting macrophyte (Myrioph...

Reverse osmosis (RO) is increasingly used in drinking water production to effectively remove micropollutants, such as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). However, RO membranes themselves may contain PFAS, which can potentially leach into treated drinking water. Leaching experiments and direct total oxidizable precursor assays reve...

The current use of chemicals puts pressure on human and ecological health. Based on the Aarhus Convention, citizens have the right to have access to information on substances in their local environment. Providing this information is a major challenge, especially considering complex mixtures, as the current substance-by-substance risk assessment may...

Recent stringent drinking water quality standards create challenges for water utilities to meet these standards. Advanced treatment techniques will have to be applied on many drinking water production locations to meet these quality standards. This study investigated the sorption of per- and polyfluorinated-alkyl substances (PFAS) onto granular act...

Per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) are a group of thousands ubiquitously applied persistent industrial chemicals. The field of PFAS environmental research is developing rapidly, but suffers from substantial biases towards specific compounds, environmental compartments, and organisms. The aim of this perspective was therefore to highlight cu...

In this study the environmental fate of two novel trifluoromethoxy-substituted surfactants with respectively an ether or thioether linkage were investigated, of which the design aimed for less persistency and complete mineralization. Long-term microbial transformation studies under aerobic conditions in activated sludge-wastewater medium were perfo...

Pharmaceuticals are known to widely occur in the environment and to affect the health of ecosystems. Sewage treatment plants (STPs) are main emission pathways for pharmaceuticals, which are often not sufficiently removed during wastewater treatment. In Europe, STP treatment requirements are specified under the Urban WasteWater Treatment Directive (...

Measures are needed to protect water sources from substances that are mobile, persistent and toxic (PMT) or very persistent and very mobile (vPvM). PMT/vPvM substances are used in a diverse range of applications, including consumer products. The combined application of the essential-use and functional substitution concepts has been proposed to phas...

Environmental risk assessment is generally based on atmospheric conditions for the modelling of chemical fate after entering the environment. However, during hydraulic fracturing, chemicals may be released deep underground. This study therefore focuses on the effects of high pressure and high temperature conditions on chemicals in flowback water to...

A wide range of PFAS residues were studied in an aquifer used for drinking water production which was affected by historical PFAS contamination from a landfill and military camp. Samples were taken at three monitoring and four pumping wells at different depths ranging from 33 to 147 m below the land surface and analysed for a series of 53 PFAS (C2-...

This study investigates human exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) via drinking water and evaluates human health risks. An analytical method for 56 target PFAS, including ultrashort-chain (C2-C3) and branched isomers, was developed. The limit of detection (LOD) ranged from 0.009 to 0.1 ng/L, except for trifluoroacetic-acid and per...

Background The NORMAN Association (https://www.norman-network.com/) initiated the NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (NORMAN-SLE; https://www.norman-network.com/nds/SLE/) in 2015, following the NORMAN collaborative trial on non-target screening of environmental water samples by mass spectrometry. Since then, this exchange of information on chemicals that...

Globally, the reuse of treated sewage effluent for irrigation purposes is increasingly encouraged as a practical solution against the mismatch between the demand for and availability of freshwater resources. The reuse of sewage effluent for sub-surface irrigation (SSI) in agriculture serves the dual purpose of supplying water to crops and diminishi...

Background: The NORMAN Association (https://www.norman-network.com/) initiated the NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (NORMAN-SLE; https://www.norman-network.com/nds/SLE/) in 2015, following the NORMAN collaborative trial on non-target screening of environmental water samples by mass spectrometry. Since then, this exchange of information on chemicals tha...

Micropollutants (MPs) in wastewater pose a growing concern for their potential adverse effects on the receiving aquatic environment, and some countries have started requiring that wastewater treatment plants remove them to a certain extent. Broad spectrum advanced treatment processes, such as ozonation, activated carbon or their combination, are ex...

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) relies on the assessment and interpretation of levels of biomarkers in wastewater originating from a well-defined community. It has provided unique information on spatial and temporal trends of licit and illicit drug consumption, and has also the potential to give complementary information on human exposure to ch...

This study aimed to provide insights into the risk posed by psychopharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in European surface waters, and to identify current knowledge gaps hampering this risk assessment. First, the availability and quality of data on the concentrations of psychopharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in surface waters (occurrence) and on the...

Background Although drinking water in the Netherlands is generally accepted as safe, public concern about health risks of long-term intake still exist. Objective The aim was to explore associations between drinking water quality for nitrate, water hardness, calcium and magnesium and causes-of-death as related to cardiovascular diseases amongst whi...

By 2050, the global population is predicted to reach nine billion, with almost three quarters living in cities. The road to 2050 will be marked by changes in land use, climate, and the management of water and food across the world. These global changes (GCs) will likely affect the emissions, transport, and fate of chemicals, and thus the exposure o...

We assessed the fate of 133 contaminants of emerging concern relevant for effluents such as herbicides, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and their transformation products in a real-scale sub-surface irrigation system fed by sewage treatment plant (STP) effluent related to their physicochemical properties (half-life ran...

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) in the environment are an emerging issue of global concern. They accumulate in natural ecosystems, and are ingested by organisms and transferred to humans potentially causing adverse toxicological effects. Knowledge on the magnitude of these effects is limited due to the lack of knowledge on realistic exposures especi...

These files contain the data used in the manuscript: "Soil self-cleaning capacity: Removal of organic compounds during sub-surface irrigation". We assessed the fate of 133 contaminants of emerging concern relevant for effluents such as herbicides, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and their transformation products in a...

The influence of biofouling on zooplankton ingestion rates of plastics in freshwater environments has received limited attention. We investigated how biofouling of microplastics in wastewater effluent and in fresh surface water influences Daphnia magna’s microplastic consumption. The differences in ingestion of the biofouled as compared to the virg...

The widespread use of chemicals has led to significant water quality concerns, and their use is still increasing. Hence, there is an urgent need to understand the possible future trends in chemical emissions to water systems. This paper proposes a general framework for developing emission scenarios for chemicals to water using the Shared Socio-econ...

Persistency of chemicals in the environment is seen a pressing issue as it results in accumulation of chemicals over time. Persistent chemicals can be an asset in a well-functioning circular economy where products are more durable and can be reused or recycled. This objective can however not always be fulfilled as release of chemicals from products...

Nanoparticles, such as metallic ones like Ag, Au and TiO 2 as well as nanoplastics, are applied in or emitted by a wide variety of products or stem from degradation.

By 2050, the global population is predicted to reach nine billion, with almost three quarters living in cities. The road to 2050 will be marked by changes in land use, climate, and the management of water and food across the world. These global changes (GCs) will likely affect the emissions, transport, and fate of chemicals, and thus the exposure o...

Background The number of chemical parameters included in monitoring programs of water utilities increased in the last decade. In accordance with the European Drinking Water Directive, utilities aim at a tailored risk-based monitoring (RBM) program. Here, such a RBM program was developed for the largest Dutch water utility, mostly using groundwater...

Illicit drug use is complex, hidden and often highly stigmatized behaviour, which brings a vast challenge for drug surveillance systems. Drug consumption can be estimated by measuring human excretion products in untreated wastewater, known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Over the last decade, the application of wastewater-based epidemiology...

There is public and scientific concern about air, soil and water contamination and possible adverse environmental and human health effects as a result of hydraulic fracturing activities. The use of greener chemicals in fracturing fluid aims to mitigate these effects. This study compares fracturing fluids marketed as either ‘conventional’ or ‘green’...

Around the world, many ambitious environmental conventions and regulations have been implemented over recent decades. Despite this, the environment is still deteriorating. An increase in the volume and diversity of chemicals is one of the main drivers of this deterioration, of which biodiversity loss is a telling indicator. In response to this situ...

The precautionary and prevention principles require that environmental risks should timely and adequately be regulated before potentially harmful activities are undertaken. The system of administrative environmental law provides ample instruments for such regulation. However, scientific uncertainties about environmental risks could complicate the f...

Plastic pollution is one of the major global environmental challenges and is therefore attracting increased societal attention. This has resulted in the adoption of a long array of national and international policies, targeting plastic pollution. Whereas early plastic pollution regulation focused mainly on banning specific plastic products such as...

Worldwide, agricultural irrigation currently accounts for 69% of freshwater withdrawal. Countries with a temperate climate, such as the Netherlands, experience periodic freshwater shortages in agriculture. The pressure on available freshwater will increase due to climate change and a growing demand for freshwater by e.g. industrial activities. Poss...

Mass spectrometry based non-target analysis is increasingly adopted in environmental sciences to screen and identify numerous chemicals simultaneously in highly complex samples. However, current data processing software either lack functionality for environmental sciences, solve only part of the workflow, are not openly available and/or are restric...

With the Green Deal the EU aims to achieve a circular economy, restore biodiversity and reduce environmental pollution. As a part of the Green Deal a ‘one-substance one-assessment’ (OS-OA) approach for chemicals has been proposed. The registration and risk assessment of chemicals on the European market is currently fragmented across different legal...

Worldwide, fresh water scarcity is often caused by a high demand from the agricultural sector that globally accounts for 69% of fresh water withdrawal. This is not only an issue for arid regions with low rainfall and high population density that are prone to increasing water stress; temperate areas with intense agriculture also suffer from frequent...

Mass spectrometry based non-target analysis is increasingly adopted in environmental sciences to screen and identify numerous chemicals simultaneously in highly complex samples. However, current data processing software either lack functionality for environmental sciences, solve only part of the workflow, are not openly available and/or are restric...

Mass spectrometry based non-target analysis is increasingly adopted in environmental sciences to screen and identify numerous chemicals simultaneously in highly complex samples. However, current data processing software either lack functionality for environmental sciences, solve only part of the workflow, are not openly available and/or are restric...

Freshwater is a precious resource, and shortages can lead to water stress, impacting agriculture, industry, and other sectors. Wastewater reuse is increasingly considered as an opportunity to meet the freshwater demand. Legislative frameworks are under development to support the responsible reuse of wastewater, i.e., to balance benefits and risks....

Knowledge of exposure to a wide range of chemicals, and the spatio-temporal variability thereof, is urgently needed in the context of protecting and restoring aquatic ecosystems. This paper discusses a computational material flow analysis to predict the occurrence of thousands of man-made organic chemicals on a European scale, based on a novel temp...

Assessment methods on data quality and environmental variability are lacking for microplastics (MP). Here we assess occurrence and variability of MP number concentrations in two Dutch rivers. Strict QA/QC procedures were applied to identify MP using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) microscopy followed by state of the art automated image analysis....

Present evaluations of chemical pollution in European surface and groundwater bodies focus on problem description and chemical classification of water quality. Surprisingly, relatively low attention has been paid to solutions of chemical pollution problems when those are encountered. Based on evaluations of current practices and available approache...

To meet the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals and the European Union (EU) strategy for a non-toxic environment, water resources and ecosystems management require cost-efficient solutions for prevailing complex contamination and multiple stressor exposures. For the protection of water resources under global change conditions, specifi...

An analysis of existing regulatory frameworks for chemicals reveals a fragmented situation with a number of regulatory frameworks designed for specific groups of chemicals; for protection of different end-points and covering different parts of the chemicals´ life cycle stages. Lack of- and fragmented information on chemicals (properties, use, emiss...

Current prioritisation procedures under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) do not account for risks from chemical mixtures. SOLUTIONS proposes a multiple-lines-of-evidence approach to tackle the problem effectively. The approach merges all available evidence from co-exposure modelling, chemical monitoring, effect-based monitoring, and ecologica...

Publicly available chemical assessments of hydraulic fracturing related waters are generally based on shale gas practices in the U.S. There is a lack of information on hydraulic fracturing related gas development from EU countries and more generally on other types of extractions. This research fills this knowledge gap by presenting chemical and bio...

We determined pesticide occurrence in groundwater and surface water sources used for drinking water production in The Netherlands, using both routine monitoring data from Dutch drinking water companies and by studying the presence of newly authorized pesticides in drinking water sources. An analytical LC-MS/MS method was developed for 24 recently a...

With the growth in production and use of chemicals and the fact that many end up in the aquatic environment, there is an increasing need for advanced water treatment technologies that can remove chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) from water. The current lack of a homogenous approach for testing advanced water treatment technologies hampers the in...

Direct industrial discharges of Chemicals of Emerging Concern (CEC) to surface water via industrial wastewater treatment plants (IWTP) gained relatively little attention compared to discharges via municipal sewage water treatment plants. IWTP effluents may however seriously affect surface water quality. Here we modelled direct industrial emissions...

The potential water demand for fracturing fluids along with the possible flowback and produced water production is assessed for the Dutch Posidonia shale. Total water demand estimated for 25 years of the field development using historic data from the U.S. plays varies between 12.2 and 36.9 Mm³. The maximal annual water consumption of 0.95–2.88 Mm³...

Advancements in high-resolution mass spectrometry based methods have enabled a shift from pure target analysis to target, suspect and non-target screening analyses to detect chemicals in water samples. The multitude of suspect chemicals thereby detected needs to be prioritized for further identification, prior to health risk assessment and potentia...

Artifical sand replenishments are globally used as innovative coastal protection measures. In these replenishments elevated pore water concentrations of trace elements are found. This study investigated possible ecotoxicological risks at two intertidal depositional sites, the Sand Engine (SE) as a recent innovative Dutch coastal management project,...

A plethora of in vitro bioassays is developed in the context of chemical risk assessment and clinical diagnostics to test effects on different biological processes. Such assays can also be implemented in effect‐based monitoring (EBM) of (drinking) water quality in parallel to chemical analyses. EBM can provide insight in the risks for environmental...

Toxicological risk assessment of contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) in (sources of) drinking water is required to identify potential health risks and prioritize chemicals for abatement or monitoring. In such assessments, concentrations of chemicals in drinking water or sources are compared to either (i) health-based (statutory) drinking water g...

The present study explores the ToxCast/Tox21 database to select candidate bioassays as bioanalytical tools for measuring groups of chemicals in water. To this aim, the ToxCast/Tox21 database was explored for bioassays that detect polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), aromatic amines (AAs), (chloro)phenols ((C)Ps) and halogenated aliphatic hydroc...

Measuring concentrations and sizes of micro- and nanoplastics in the environment is essential to assess the risks plastic particles could pose. Microplastics have been detected globally in a variety of aquatic ecosystems. The determination of nanoplastics, however, is lagging behind due to higher methodological challenges. Here, we propose a framew...

Ozonation, sorption to granular activated carbon and aerobic degradation were compared as potential treatment methods for removal of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) fractions and selected organic compounds from shale gas flowback water after pre-treatment in dissolved air flotation unit. Flowback water was characterised by high chemical oxygen deman...

Governments invest in “key enabling technologies,” such as nanotechnology, to solve societal challenges and boost the economy. At the same time, governmental agencies demand risk reduction to prohibit any often unknown adverse effects, and industrial parties demand smart approaches to reduce uncertainties. Responsible research and innovation (RRI)...

We identify uncertainties and knowledge gaps of chemical risk assessment related to unconventional drillings and propose adaptations. We discuss how chemical risk assessment in the context of unconventional oil and gas (UO&G) activities differs from conventional chemical risk assessment and the implications for existing legislation. A UO&G suspect...

Researcher and media alarms have caused plastic debris to be perceived as a major threat to humans and animals. However, although the waste of plastic in the environment is clearly undesirable for aesthetic and economic reasons, the actual environmental risks of different plastics and their associated chemicals remain largely unknown. Here we show...

Governments invest in “key enabling technologies,” such as nanotechnology, to solve societal challenges and boost the economy. At the same time, governmental agencies demand risk reduction to prohibit any often unknown adverse effects, and industrial parties demand smart approaches to reduce uncertainties. Responsible research and innovation (RRI)...

The water system provides many services to society; industries, municipalities and agriculture all withdraw, use and return water and demand a water quality fit for the intended purposes. Both global production of chemicals and global water withdrawal grow faster than human population. This implies increased chemical threats to water, and creates a...

Organic contaminants in shale gas flowback and produced water (FPW) are traditionally expressed as total organic carbon (TOC) or chemical oxygen demand (COD), though these parameters do not provide information on the toxicity and environmental fate of individual components. This review addresses identification of individual organic contaminants in...

Background This paper describes a conceptual framework for solutions-focused management of chemical contaminants built on novel and systematic approaches for identifying, quantifying and reducing risks of these substances. Methods The conceptual framework was developed in interaction with stakeholders representing relevant authorities and organisat...

Only very limited information is available on measured environmental concentrations of nanoparticles. In this study, several environmental compartments in The Netherlands were probed for the presence of nanoparticles. Different types of water were screened for the presence of inorganic (Ag, Au, TiO2) and organic nanoparticles (C60, C70, [6,6]-pheny...

Water is a vital resource for natural ecosystems and human life, and assuring a high quality of water and protecting it from chemical contamination is a major societal goal in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its daughter directives are the major body of legislation for the protection and sustainable use of Euro- pean fre...

Water is a vital resource for natural ecosystems and human life, and assuring a high quality of water and protecting it from chemical contamination is a major societal goal in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its daughter directives are the major body of legislation for the protection and sustainable use of European fresh...

For the prioritization of more than 5200 anthropogenic chemicals authorized on the European market, we use a large scale liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) suspect screening study. The prioritization is based on occurrence in 151 water samples including effluent, surface water, ground water and drinking water. The sus...

Here, we estimate the release of primary microplastics from consumer products - cosmetics and personal care products, cleaning agents, paint and coatings - via sewage effluent, as an expected relevant route to the marine environment. Total estimated concentrations in three scenarios are 0.2, 2.7 and 66 µg/L in sewage treatment plant (STP) effluent...