A team of researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine has developed a new strategy for identifying hazardous pollutants in soil, even ones that have never been isolated or studied in a lab.

A common by-product of combustion, PAHs and PACs have been linked to cancer, developmental issues and other serious health problems.

Identifying pollutants in soil usually requires advanced laboratories and standard physical reference samples of the suspected contaminants. However, for many environmental pollutants that pose a public health risk, there is no experimental data available that can be used to detect them.

This method makes it possible to identify chemicals that have not yet been isolated experimentally.