our research
The presence of xenobiotics, such as engineered PFAS, pesticides, flame retardants, plasticizers, nanomaterials, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in the environment has raised concerns about the impact of these contaminants on the environment and on public health. However, there are still large knowledge gaps that interfere with the ability of regulatory agencies and municipalities to make informed decisions to protect the environment, water systems and public health from the impacts of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). In addition, the currently available knowledge is insufficient to allow proposing ways to control the release of CECs into the environment. Our research program is multi-disciplinary, including chemical and environmental engineering, analytical chemistry, microbiology and ecotoxicology. The main research activities of the group, developed with the long-term objective of protecting our water resources, span three main research areas:
TREATING WASTEWATERS:
Developing/Improving treatment technologies for municipal and industrial wastewaters to mitigate the release and impacts of CECs
ASSESSING EFFECTS:
Studying the nature and toxicity of transformation products of CECs and treated wastewaters
ASSESSING FATE & EXPOSURE:
Performing environmental assessment to evaluate the contribution of wastewater to discharges of CECs into the environment, monitor fate in the environment and engineered systems and the exposure through drinking water.
Our expertise and infrastructure allowing the monitoring of trace contaminants in wastewater is also applied to tracking patterns of consumption of population or population health.
WASTEWATER-BASED EPIDEMIOLOGY:
Investigating and deploying an innovative approach which enables information about use or exposure to compounds and diseases in population to be determined from wastewater via the analysis of human matebolic excretion products.