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SUMMARY:EESS talk on "Unravelling the environmental fate of organic microp
 ollutants using stable isotope methods"
DTSTART:20181113T121500
DTEND:20181113T131500
DTSTAMP:20260427T200316Z
UID:f148af052b10878c408ef63d21f36697caae64180d59abdde97fc381
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Daniel Hunkeler\, Professor of Hydrogeology\, Director of C
 HYN (Centre of Hydrogeology et de Geothermics)\, University of Neuchâtel\
 , CH\nHe is a professor of the Centre for Hydrogeology and Geothermics (CH
 YN) of the University of Neuchâtel. He directs the hydrochemistry and con
 taminants laboratory. His research focusses on the behavior of organic con
 taminants in the subsurface with an emphasis on new laboratory and computa
 tional method to quantify reactive processes.\nAbstract:\nCompound-specifi
 c isotope analysis (CSIA) is a powerful method to track the fate of contam
 inants in the aquatic systems\, so far mainly applied to legacy contaminan
 ts\, such as chlorinated and petroleum hydrocarbons. There is growing inte
 rest to apply the method also to polar organic micropollutants\, such as p
 esticides\, pharmaceuticals and consumer care products\, which are of incr
 easing concern for human and ecosystem health. CSIA of polar organic micro
 pollutants is demanding because they tend to occur at low concentrations\,
  are challenging to extract from water\, more difficult to transform to th
 e IRMS measurement gas and are transformed by numerous mechanisms\, whose 
 isotope effects are not known yet. In the presentation\, the main findings
  from a collaborative research program to extent CSIA to organic micropoll
 utants are presented.\nThanks to the successful development of large-volum
 e (up to 40L) pre-concentration and clean-up methods\, it was possible to 
 perform CSIA at environmentally relevant concentrations (as low as 0.2 µg
 /L) even if matrix to analyte ratios were highly unfavorable. Using a comb
 ination of LC-IRMS\, GC-IRMS combined with new derivatization methods\, an
 d GC-qMS\, multi-element (C\, N and Cl) CSIA became feasible for frequentl
 y detected pesticides\, their metabolites and consumer care products. The 
 methods were field-tested in a three-year lysimeter experiment and at wast
 e water treatment plants. While pesticide/metabolite concentrations strong
 ly fluctuated in the lysimeter study due to the highly transient hydrologi
 cal conditions\, CSIA data show a steady enrichment of heavy isotopes for 
 some compounds\, even if injected below the root zone. These results highl
 ight the potential of multi-element CSIA to demonstrate transformation of 
 polar organic micropollutants under transient environmental conditions\, w
 hich is difficult to achieve with other methods.
LOCATION:GR A3 32 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==GR%20A3%2032
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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