Environmental Chemistry Group at SETAC Europe 2025

Many members of the environmental chemistry group traveled with the former environmental chemistry of anthropogenic materials group to present their work at the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Europe in Vienna, Austria. Overall, it was a successful week learning about cutting-edge science and expanding our networks in Europe and abroad. Some highlights include:
July Laszakovits co-organized with Sarah Pati (University of Vienna) a session titled, “Photochemical Transformation of Contaminants in Aquatic Environments” where
• Sofia Ambrogetti gave an oral presentation, “Photochemical Degradation of Di-clofenac and Cimetidine in Natural Aquatic Environments: A Comparative Study of Laboratory and Field Experiments”
• Mattia Balestra gave a poster presentation, “Photodegradation of Trifluorome-thyl-Substituted Aromatic Compounds: Effect of Nitrogen Presence in Aromatic Rings”
• Shelby Buckley gave a poster presentation, “Role of Direct and Sensitized Pho-tolysis in the Photomineralization of Dissolved Organic Matter and Model Chro-mophores to Carbon Dioxide”
• Eliane Ballmer contributed a poster, “The Role of Lipids in the Photoinactivation of Enveloped Viruses”

Martin Scheringer’s subgroup shared posters on risk assessment
• Elvira Rudin, Deriving Soil Threshold Values for PFASs – Navigating Toxicity, Expo-sure, and Practical Limits
• Naila Hina, Mapping contaminated sites and potential sources to understand the extent of known and potential contamination in the EU

Michael Sander’s students and postdoc shared current knowledge on polymer biodeg-radation:
• Thijs Vangeel presented a poster, “Enzymatic Hydrolyzability of Biobased and Bi-odegradable Polyesters: Towards Structure-Reactivity Relationships”
• Flora Wille gave an oral presentation, “Biodegradable Mulch Films in Agricultural Soils: The Effect of Temperature on Biodegradation Dynamics”
• Kevin Kleemann gave an oral presentation, “Photochemical Chain Scissions En-hance Polyethylene Glycol Biodegradability: From Probabilistic Modelling to Ex-perimental Demonstration”

The former ECAM group, led by Denise Mitrano, shared their latest findings on micro and nanoplastics,
• Denise Mitrano gave an oral presentation, “Contaminant incorporation in sea ice: understanding the roles of sea ice formation and contaminant properties” and a poster, “Biodistribution of Polystyrene Nanoplastics in Mice: Advancing Analytical Techniques Using Metal-doped Plastics”
• Current postdoc, Sam Cusworth, gave an oral presentation, “Assessment of Sampling Approaches for Representative Quantification of Microplastics in Soil”
• Current PhD student, Mike Rohling, gave an oral presentation, “Incorporation of microplastics into water-stable soil aggregates: dependencies on particle and soil characteristics”
• Current postdoc, Roman Schefer, gave a poster presentation, “Adsorption and protection of environmental DNA (eDNA) on polymer and silica surfaces”
• Current postdoc, Francesco Parrella, gave a poster presentation “Factors Im-pacting Resuspension of Microplastics from Rivers: Analysis of Burial and Shielding Effects of Sediment Beds”
• Former postdoc, Chris Whitshaw, gave an oral presentation, “Nanoplastics in Terrestrial Ecosystems: Linking Exposure to Effects Through Dose-Response As-says and Toxicokinetic Modelling”
• Former postdoc, David Mennekes, gave an oral presentation, “Microplastic Fate and Transport in Rivers: A Flume Experiment”