Research Group: Environmental Chemistry

What happens to a pesticide, a heavy metal, an antibiotic, a detergent or a natural toxin when it is introduced to a soil, a freshwater body or as runoff in urban environments? Will it degrade and how, will it bind to the sediment particles, can it photodegrade, will it leach or evaporate, are the concentrations so high that they will kill soil animals or be taken up in plants?

Many questions that immediately turns up for whatever pollutant that hits the soil coming from various sources such as the air, fertilizers, manure, waste, traffic and chemical spills/deposits. The questions are at the core of what we work with in the Environmental Chemistry research group. We are searching for molecular insight in fate of chemicals, and we provide data to safeguard the use of chemicals. We also work with methods by which we can clean polluted soils and waters, for instance making filters, by introducing reactive nanomaterials to polluted groundwater, or by extracting toxic metals. In our work we are measuring concentrations and chemical properties, and hence use a large variety of instruments and methods. You can read more about our work in the following pages, by clicking the members of the research group providing access to our publications or simply by contacting us - and maybe meet for a coffee.