Emerging Contaminants in Environmental and Biological Systems: Analytical Challenges and Solutions
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Analytical Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 October 2026 | Viewed by 60
Special Issue Editors
Interests: development of new portable procedures for the determination of metals and arsenic in environmental and food matrices; development of voltammetric methods for on-site speciation studies; characterization of environmental compartments (water, soil, sediment, particulate matter) and food (extravirgin olive oil, nuts, honey, fish); chemometric data treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: development of analytical procedure for the voltametric determination of metals, arsenic, organic species, personal care, and drug residues in food, vegetables, and natural waters; chemical characterization of food matrices for authentication studies
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The occurrence of emerging contaminants—including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, endocrine disruptors, industrial chemicals, micro- and nanoplastics, transformation products, and other newly recognized pollutants—has become a major concern for environmental and human health. Understanding their sources, fate, and potential impacts requires reliable and innovative analytical approaches capable of detecting these compounds at trace levels in complex environmental and biological matrices.
This Special Issue aims to gather cutting-edge research and comprehensive reviews on recent advances in analytical chemistry applied to the identification, quantification, and characterization of emerging contaminants. Contributions highlighting method development, optimization, validation, and high-sensitivity approaches are welcome.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Development and application of voltametric, chromatographic, spectrometric, and spectroscopic techniques.
- High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) for targeted, suspect, and non-target screening.
- Novel sample preparation strategies, including microextraction and green analytical methodologies.
- Detection of transformation products, metabolites, and degradation pathways.
- Analytical challenges related to micro- and nanoplastics, nanoparticles, and complex matrices.
- Monitoring of emerging contaminants in water, soil, air, biota, and food.
- Data analysis, chemometrics, and machine learning applied to analytical workflows.
- Risk assessment supported by analytical evidence.
- Case studies on environmental or human exposure to emerging contaminants.
This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, short communications and review papers that provide new insights, methodologies, or perspectives on the analytical chemistry of emerging contaminants.
Dr. Agnese Giacomino
Guest Editor
Dr. Paolo Inaudi
Guest Editor Assistant
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- emerging contaminants
- trace analysis
- new analytical methods and techniques
- food
- environmental matrices
- sample preparation
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