Smelling out fragrances
Stroud Center scientist Laurel Standley is working on a research project with University of Delaware colleagues to determine whether household product fragrances are harmful to the environment.
In this research, as with much of her other work, Standley uses a mass spectrometer as her nose. This sophisticated and expensive machine identifies types of particles present in a sample. The particles are ionized and beamed through a magnetic field which measures their mass, thus identifying them.
The Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, an organization formed by a consortium of chemical manufacturers, is funding the two-year project. The consortium is concerned about what happens to the fragrances in their household products after they are poured down the drain. In particular, they want to know what happens to the fragrances when they are spread on farmers' fields in sludge from sewage treatment plants. Do the fragrances evaporate into the atmosphere? If so, is there any risk of accumulation in the atmosphere or in the tissues of humans and animals? Do the fragrances decompose harmlessly with the sludge?
"They want to make sure these things don't become a problem," said Standley. They don't want to make the mistake that was made with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and refrigerants. The assumption was that they were harmless.
Standley explained that the fragrances are organic chemicals, many of which originate from plants. Vanilla is one example.
The scientists make a distinction between fragrances and perfumes. The latter, Standley said, are made up of many components to produce a unique smell - and are usually expensive. Fragrances are simpler, manufactured in bulk and produced as cheaply as possible to make products more appealing to consumers.
Standley's fellow team members from the University of Delaware are environmental engineering academics, Herb Allen, Pei Chiu and Dan Cha, and graduate student Angela DiFrancesco. They do most of the fieldwork, and the Stroud Center does most of the laboratory analysis.
