The Environmental Chemistry Department is a diverse and highly interdisciplinary group of scientists whose research focuses on the processes influencing the chemical speciation of natural systems, the mobility and fate of contaminants in the environment (water, air, soil, crops and biota), the processes that affect the toxicity and bioavailability of contaminants, and many aspects of contaminant remediation.
We are experts on the assessment of presence, distribution and fate of natural and anthropogenic contaminants, including priority and emerging organic contaminants, metals and organometallic compounds inputs to the environment.

Our research groups have developed:
• novel analytical methods to analyse priority and emerging contaminants in environmental, food and human matrices
• chemometrics tools to study of metabolomic effects of environmental stressors on target organisms
• an array of lab toxicity tests such as transgenic yeast, cell lines, zebrafish and Daphnia magna models
• chemical and genomic approaches to study the biogeochemistry of anthropogenic organic chemicals
• sustainable wastewater treatment systems
• monitoring tools and campaigns for assessment of contaminants degradation/metabolism in different types of matrices, including development of novel passive samplers
• studies on bioaccumulation and biomagnification through the food web of contaminants in crops, biota and humans
• study of fossil organic molecules as tools to explain gradual and abrupt natural changes and how these changes interact with those originating from human influence
• study of atmospheric pollution in urban/industrial environments together with assessment of pollutant transport to remote sites

Click below to find out more information on the different research groups.