Process Studies

The study of transport and transformation processes of organic micropollutants in natural and engineered aquatic systems is a key activity of the departments. We investigate microbe-catalyzed and abiotic reactions of a wide variety of priority pollutants from the laboratory to the field scale.

Current areas of activity include (i) mechanistic investigations in laboratory model systems and with computational chemistry tools, (ii) pollutant transformation in the field (riverbank infiltration, landfills and abandoned production facilities) and in sewage- and drinking water treatment facilities as well as (iii) conceptual and mathematic models for the assessment and prediction of chemical fate and effects.

According to our scientific projects, the tools and approaches are diverse, ranging from the elucidation of fundamental aspects of transformation kinetics to the development of evaluative models for the comprehensive prediction of reaction pathways. To this end, our investigations not only address many aspects of contaminant transformation but also provide characterization of chemical reactants and microorganisms in aquatic systems.

Projects

• Improved strategy to assess chemical persistence at the water-sediment interface (LRI ECO18-Eawag) [...]
• Improving structure-biodegradation relationships to predict products and rates of aerobic biotransformation of organic micropollutants [...]
• Bioaccumulation of environmental organic pollutants in the freshwater organism: Biotransformation and its significance [...]
  

• isoSoil: Contaminant-specific isotope analyses as new tools for site characterization, monitoring and source apportionment of pollutants in soil [...]
  
• eCLAY: redox reactivity of iron-bearing clay minerals [...]
  
• Using nitrogen isotope fractionation to assess redox reactions of substituted aromatic amines and N-alkylamines [...]
• Experimental validation and development of a computer-based system to predict biotransformation pathways of chemicals [...]
• Can the biotransformation capacities of microbial communities be predicted? [...]
• The impact of abiotic factors on hybrid Daphnia populations across the Alps: are pollution effects irreversible? [...]

Closed projects

• Influence of the river revitalisation on the behaviour of organic micropollutants in the Thur valley within CCES project Record [...]
• Development of Passive Sampling for Water Quality Assessment and for Simulating the Bioconcentration in Aquatic Organism Under Pulsed Exposure Conditions [...]
• Formation of Nonextractable Residues of Sulfonamides with Organic Matter - Mechanisms and Detection by High Resolution Tandem Mass Spectrometry [...]
• Predicting sorption of neutral and ionic complex contaminants [...]
• Computational prediction of biodegradation pathways of environmental contaminants [...]