Research project Environmental relevance in biotransformation

There are few measurements of biotransformation under environmentally relevant conditions, and little is known about its temporal and spatial variability in the environment. We have recently modified a standard biotransformation test to make it environmentally relevant by eliminating the spiking of test chemical and instead working with contaminant residues already present in the water. Here we further develop and apply this test to measure biotransformation in European surface waters with broad climatic and geographic variability. Modern suspect screening techniques will be used to study many contaminants simultaneously. The resulting unique dataset will be used to explore different proxies for describing the spatial and temporal variability of the biodegradation rate.