High resolution techniques for studies of peatlands, peaty waters and whisky

Peatlands are carbon-rich ecosystems that contain four times the carbon stored by forests. They act as a filter for 70% of our drinking waters and trap pollutants like heavy metals. Unfortunately, 80% of peatlands, in the UK alone, have been assessed as damaged mainly via drainage for repurposing the land for agriculture. Peat has also been extracted for use as a fuel, compost and source of flavour in products like whisky. Legislation is now in place to bar/limit certain uses and hundreds of millions of £ have been invested into restoring peatlands back to good health.
All of this raises many questions, such as what is the environmental impact of damaged peatlands? Can they be fully restored? How do these concerns impact drinking water and whisky? The task is not easy as peat is one of the most uncharacterised complex mixtures on Earth but hey, who doesn’t like a challenge, right?
In this presentation, I will show how we are designing and applying high resolution techniques such as solid- and liquid-state NMR spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometry and RNA/DNA analysis to answer these questions. Applications to complex matrices of peat, drinking water disinfection by-products and whisky will be discussed.