Background Society aims for a pollutant-free environment, reflected in initiatives under the European Green Deal, which seek to reduce hazardous substances and promote safe, sustainable chemical use. Comprehensive exposure data are needed to identify sources, understand mixtures and eliminate sources of chemical pollution. High-resolution mass spectrometry non-target screening (HRMS NTS) is increasingly used in environmental regulatory context to chemically characterise the environment as completely as possible and retrospectively screen for known and emerging substances. Results This study provides use cases for monitoring and chemicals management with data from the German NTSPortal, a database and visualisation tool for HRMS NTS data from surface water and suspended particulate matter of major German rivers. Its internal spectral library enables substance identification comparable to standardised target analysis, supporting regulatory acceptance of HRMS NTS data for prioritisation and mixture assessment. To demonstrate its potential to research and regulation, we characterised the spatial and temporal distribution of riverine chemical mixtures and present selected use cases relevant to EU environmental, emission, and chemical legislation. Despite pronounced spatial variability, mixture composition based on presence–absence data remained stable over time, with 855 of 1721 substances detected at least once and 247 occurring ubiquitously. Declining trends for regulated substances such as carbendazim and climbazole illustrate the effectiveness of regulatory measures. Overall, the results showed that NTS data repositories can help overcome fragmented exposure information and enable more consistent use of monitoring data across policy areas, including evaluation of the revised Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive and One Health concepts. Conclusions Data from the German NTSPortal enabled a multi-matrix and temporal characterisation of riverine chemical mixtures, revealing both stable mixture compositions over time and persistent, catchment-specific substances. These data facilitated high-resolution mixture assessments across space and time, alongside trend analyses that meet regulatory needs in environmental monitoring and chemical risk assessment. Further temporal, spatial, chemical and matrix-spanning expansion of HRMS NTS repositories will enhance their value for environmental monitoring programmes. Strengthening interoperability, implementing FAIR data principles, and developing advanced tools for prioritisation, quantification and toxicity prediction, including AI-based approaches, will be crucial to fully realise the regulatory potential of NTS portals in the future. © The Author(s) 2026.
The interest in the reuse of water treatment residuals (WTR) as a low-cost alternative to commercial adsorbents for metal removal from aqueous solutions has been growing in recent years. In this study, Fe-WTR and Mn-WTR from a pilot-scale groundwater treatment plant were investigated for their potential to remove As(III), Cd(II), Cu(II), Ni(II) and Pb(II) from different water matrices and at different pH values in batch tests. WTR compositions were compared with chemical and microscopic analyses, revealing that Mn-WTR had a higher Mn content and a slightly higher pHPZC than Fe-WTR. In kinetic experiments at pH 7.0, metal adsorption onto Fe-WTR was faster than adsorption onto Mn-WTR, while final loadings were higher on Mn-WTR. Ni(II) and Cd(II) showed higher affinities for Mn-WTR, while the adsorption capacity of Fe-WTR was exhausted after short contact times. The Elovich model was best suited to describe experimental data, indicating chemisorption as the dominant adsorption mechanism. Isotherm experiments in multi-solute solutions showed that As(III) and Pb(II) removals increased with decreasing pH, while Cd(II) and Ni(II) removals increased with increasing pH. Except for Pb(II), adsorption could be explained with electrostatic interactions between adsorbate and adsorbent, and precipitation likely played a role in metal removal. The Langmuir model described the data better than the Freundlich model in most cases. However, models were unable to represent competition that clearly occurred at higher initial concentrations. Fe-WTR was better suited for metal adsorption in most cases; yet Mn-WTR was more effective for the adsorption of Cd(II) and Ni(II). © 2026 The Authors
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) document No. 54 provides assistance on the statistical analysis of ecotoxicity data to ensure scientifically robust and globally harmonized evaluations of biotests across various regions and regulatory sectors. However, some of the recommended methodologies are outdated due to significant advances in statistical techniques and regulatory requirements. In addition, practitioners have been calling for a more user-friendly structure, aiming to facilitate data analysis for users without extensive statistical expertise. To address these concerns, a research project was initiated by the German Environment Agency with the aim to update OECD No. 54. As part of this project, a dedicated workshop was convened to gather expert perspectives from different sectors (incl. academic, industry, and regulators) on revision needs of OECD No. 54 aiming to better reflect current scientific and regulatory standards. Key debates of the workshop included restructuring the document to improve user accessibility, clarifying terminology, addressing methodological gaps such as assessment approaches for ordinal and count data, and incorporating state-of-the-art modeling approaches for time-dependent toxicity assessment. In addition, the integration of modern statistical practices in hypothesis testing and the provision of clearer guidance on model selection for dose–response analyses were identified as crucial needs for updating OECD No. 54. This synthesis captures the workshop’s contributions and recommendations, outlining a roadmap for the revision of OECD No. 54, and highlights the ongoing collaboration with an ISO working group to ensure consistency of standards across regulatory frameworks. © The Author(s) 2025.
Several scientific initiatives are underway to modernise and advance chemical environmental risk assessment (ERA), supporting the shift from conventional practices toward more mechanistic, integrated, and systems-based approaches. These developments aim to enhance ecological realism, improve predictive capacity, reduce reliance on animal testing, and foster greater alignment across sectors, ultimately contributing to better protection of biodiversity and the environment. Yet, translating these innovative approaches into regulatory practice remains challenging due to fragmented efforts and limited alignment between research and policy. To address this gap, the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) is fostering structured dialogue and stakeholder engagement to align research and innovation with regulatory needs. Within PARC, a proposed solution is the development of the MIND platform—Map, Integrate, Network, Drive—envisioned as a strategic and collaborative space that connects people, practices, and resources across disciplines and regulatory domains. MIND aims to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing and integration, gradually connecting fragmented initiatives to build a more integrated and interoperable ERA knowledge ecosystem. By encouraging collaboration, improving data sharing, and enhancing policy relevance, MIND seeks to accelerate the uptake of advanced ERA approaches in regulatory practice, with a particular focus on safeguarding biodiversity. Over time, this may contribute to Europe’s sustainability objectives and the ambitions of the European Green Deal. © 2026 The Author(s)
This conference summary proposes general goals and associated actions for a collaborative effort amongst European countries to address the problem of soil contamination by perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). It reflects the discussions during the international conference “PFAS in soil – forever pollution, forever concern?” taking place in Berlin/Germany on 25th and 26th of March 2025. The five general goals derived from the discussions suggest to: (i) Strictly prevent future PFAS immissions into soils, (ii) Systematically identify PFAS-contaminated sites, (iii) Provide a powerful fit-for-routine chemical analysis of PFAS in soil, (iv) Establish effective management strategies for PFAS-contaminated sites and (v) Minimize human PFAS exposure via soil (food, feed, drinking water, direct contact). © The Author(s) 2026.
The increasing use of chemicals has led to the integration of the bioconcentration factor (BCF) into chemical regulation. A machine learning model trained on chemical properties and test conditions for 962 chemicals enabled us to estimate experimental BCFs in 16 fish species with up to 90 % accuracy. We showed that the BCF is not, as generally assumed, a fixed chemical-specific criterion, but increases with lower exposure concentration and longer exposure duration. A review of 165 regulatory studies submitted to EU authorities showed that about half of the chemicals that should have been classified as bioaccumulative according to worst-case criteria defined in our study were not so classified based on the experimental BCFs submitted. We therefore propose the implementation of two new objective metrics, BCF50 for minimum requirement bioaccumulation screening and BCF90 as a realistic worst-case surrogate, into regulation. © 2026 by the Authors
Das Informationssystem Chemikalien des Bundes und der Länder, ChemInfo, verfügt über sechs unterschiedlich gestaltete Rechercheoberflächen sowie verschiedene eigenständige Produkte für mobile Endgeräte und Desktop-PCs, in denen die Inhalte der Gesamt-Datenbank für verschiedene Nutzungsszenarien vorsortiert und aufbereitet sind. Viele Tools, die Administratoren zur Verfügung stehen, ermöglichen die Individualisierung von Suchseiten für die jeweiligen Einsatzzwecke. Diese müssen jeweils in allen ChemInfo-Systembestandteilen gleichermaßen automatisiert umgesetzt werden. Um eine reibungslose Übernahme neuer Anpassungen zu gewährleisten, interagieren die Systembestandteile Datenmodelleditor, Redaktion, Struktursuche, Administration, Import, Export und Recherche miteinander. © 2026 Der/die Autor(en)
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