The scientific community has increasingly focused on forming transformation products (TPs) from environmental organic pollutants. However, there is still a lot of discussion over how these TPs are generated and how harmful they are to living terrestrial or aquatic organisms. Potential transformation pathways, TP toxicity, and their mechanisms require more investigation. Non-target screening (NTS) via high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) in model organisms to identify TPs and the formation mechanism on various organisms is the focus of this review. Furthermore, uptake, accumulation process, and potential toxicity with their detrimental consequences are summarized in various organisms. Finally, challenges and future research initiatives, such as performing NTS in a model organism, characterizing and quantifying TPs, and evaluating future toxicity studies on TPs, are also included in this review.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are known to be representative carcinogenic environmental pollutants with high toxicity. However, information on the potential ecological and environmental risks of PAH contamination in soil remains scarce. Thus, this study was evaluated the potential ecological risks of PAHs in soils of five Korean areas (Gunsan (GS), Gwangju, Yeongnam, Busan, and Gangwon) using organic carbon (OC)-normalized analysis, mean effect range-median quotient (M-ERM-Q), toxic equivalent quantity (TEQ) analysis, and risk quotient (RQ) derived by the species sensitivity distribution model. In this study, atmospheric particulate matter has a significant effect on soil pollution in GS through the presence of hopanes and the similar pattern of PAHs in soil and atmospheric PAHs. From analysis of source identification, combustion sources in soils of GS were important PAH sources. For PAHs in soils of GS, the OC-normalized analysis, M-ERM-Q, and TEQ analysis have 26.78 × 10⁵ ng/g-OC, 0.218, and 49.72, respectively. Therefore, the potential ecological risk assessment results showed that GS had moderate-high ecological risk and moderate-high carcinogenic risk, whereas the other regions had low ecological risk and low-moderate carcinogenic risk. The risk level (M-ERM-Q) of PAH contamination in GS was similar to that in Changchun and Xiangxi Bay in China. The Port Harcourt City in Nigeria for PAH has the highest risk (M-ERM-Q = 4.02 and TEQ = 7923). Especially, compared to China (RQ_Phe =0.025 and 0.05), and Nigeria (0.059), phenanthrene showed the highest ecological risk in Korea (0.001-0.18). Korea should focus on controlling the release of PAHs originating from the PM in GS.

Bisphenol AF (BPAF) is found in high concentrations in aquatic environments due to the increased use of thermal paper and food packaging. However, there have been relatively few toxicological studies and potential risk assessments of BPAF. In this study, the risk quotient (RQ) and hazard quotient (HQ) of BPAF were derived to present the safety standards for environmental risk management and protection in lakes, rivers, bays, and Italian regions. We applied the species sensitivity distribution (SSD) method based on the previous ecotoxicological data and the results of supplementary toxicity tests on BPAF. From the SSD curves, the hazardous concentration for 5 % of the species (HC₅) values for the acute and chronic toxicity data were 464.75 µg/L and 3.59 µg/L, respectively, and the acute- and chronic-based predicted no-effect concentration were derived as 154.92 µg/L and 1.20 µg/L, respectively. The acute-based RQ (RQ_A)values of BPAF in all regions were negligible (RQ < 0.1). The chronic-based RQ (RQ_C) in the Xitang River (XR) and the Central Italy (CI) showed a considerably high ecological risk (12.77 and 1.29) and the Hangzhou Bay (0.21), the South and North Italy (0.79 and 0.27), and the Tamagawa River (0.13) had a medium ecological risk (0.1 < RQ < 1.0). However, the HQ values based on the tolerable daily intake for BPAF over all age groups in these regions was < 0.1, indicating the low health risk. Nonetheless, the result of this study indicates that BPAF contamination is serious in XR and CI, and their use and emissions require continuous monitoring.

A fully integrated sensor array assisted by pattern recognition algorithm has been a primary candidate for the assessment of complex vapor mixtures based on their chemical fingerprints. Diverse prototypes of electronic nose systems consisting of a multisensory device and a post processing engine have been developed. However, their precision and validity in recognizing chemical vapors are often limited by the collected database and applied classifiers. Here, we present a novel way of preparing the database and distinguishing chemical vapor mixtures with small data acquisition for chemical vapors and their mixtures of interest. The database for individual vapor analytes is expanded and the one for their mixtures is prepared in the first-order approximation. Recognition of individual target vapors of NO₂, HCHO, and NH₃ and their mixtures was evaluated by applying the support vector machine (SVM) classifier in different conditions of temperature and humidity. The suggested method demonstrated the recognition accuracy of 95.24%. The suggested method can pave a way to analyze gas mixtures in a variety of industrial and safety applications.

Recently, national regulatory agencies have announced plans to move away from animal testing through the adoption of new approach methods (NAMs) including in silico and in vitro approaches. In this study, we suggest a new approach of environmental risk assessment method for water quality criteria of bisphenol A (BPA) in the surface water of 11 rivers in Asia using an alternative toxicity method based on the in vitro-based cytotoxicity and genetic toxicity. The hazardous concentrations for 5% (HC₅) were obtained from the species sensitivity distribution (SSD) curves based on the traditional acute toxicities (TAT), traditional chronic toxicities (TCT), and alterative acute toxicities (AAT) data. The HC₅ values for the TAT, TCT, and AAT data were 2019.3 µg/L, 0.92 µg/L, and 0.68 µg/L, respectively. The TAT-based predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC_TAT), TCT-based PNEC (PNEC_TCT), and AAT-based PNEC (PNEC_AAT) values were derived as 1009.65 µg/L, 0.46 µg/L, and 0.34 µg/L, respectively. The TAT-based risk quotient (RQ_TAT) value of BPA was negligible (<0.1). The AAT-based RQ value (RQ_AAT) of BPA in Liuxi river (RQ_AAT = 21.94) of China showed the highest potential ecological risk of the 11 sampled rivers of Asia. In Korea, the highest potential risk assessment (RQ_AAT = 2.93) was recorded in Gyeonggi-do as the largest administrative region. The results may suggest that the application of AAT in the ecological risk assessment for surface water can replace the previously applied TCT approach.