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Environmental Soil Chemistry
Second title: Environmental Soil Chemistry
Provider: Faculty of Science

Activity no.: 5714-19-09-31There are no available seats 
Enrollment deadline: 20/08/2019
PlaceDepartment of Plant and Environmental Sciences
Date and time02.09.2019, at: 00:00 - 01.11.2019, at: 00:00
Regular seats10
ECTS credits8.00
Contact personHans Chr. Bruun Hansen    E-mail address: haha@plen.ku.dk
Enrolment Handling/Course OrganiserHans Chr. Bruun Hansen    E-mail address: haha@plen.ku.dk
Written languageEnglish
Teaching languageEnglish
Semester/BlockBlock 1
Block noteThe course runs from start of September and the following 8 weeks
Scheme groupNot included in the scheme group
Scheme group noteTo be determined - MSc part of the course in group C.
Exam formWritten assignment
Exam detailsWritten report or poster on topic agreed with the course teacher. Preferably to be completed within one month after termination of the tutorials.
Grading scalePassed / Not passed
Course workload
Course workload categoryHours
Preparation120.00
Theory exercises30.00
Project work100.00

Sum250.00


Content
This course presents an overview of the various processes affecting natural and anthropogenic pollutants in soils, sediments and water for quantifying pollutant fate. An overview of pollutants in soil and water media is given including both nutrients, inorganic pollutants (like heavy metals and radionuclides), and organic contaminants (such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, solvents, plastic). Both solids (like clays, metal oxides, carbonates, humic matter) and the solution phase properties are included to obtain a full picture of pollutant distribution, sorption (incl. bioavailability), transformation, and mineralisation. Main focus is on reactions at the solid-solution interfaces in soil and sediment systems, such as sorption (pollutant bonding), abiotic degradation (oxidation/reduction, hydrolysis, photolysis) and microbial/enzymatic degradation. The course includes a short introduction and training in the use of equilibrium computation (MINTEQ) and QSAR tools (EPISuite). Focus throughout the course is on a quantitative approach enabling calculations to estimate distribution, degradation rates, product speciation, etc. for quantifying the fate of pollutants.

Part of the course comprise lectures and exercises from the MSc course "Soil and Water Pollution - concepts and theories" taught in the same block. In addition to these lectures and exercises, tutorials with only the PhD students attending and with focus on paper reading is performed. Papers are selected depending on the interests of the course participants. The papers are discussed in plenum and summarized by the course participants.


The main topics of the course are:
•Properties of geosorbents (metal oxides, silicates, humic matter)
•Transformation processes at particle surfaces (minerals, organic matter, bacteria)
•Microbial populations and microbial degradation of pollutants
•Basic models for equilibrium speciation, solubility, and for sorption of ionic and non-ionic pollutants (e.g. pesticides, petrochemicals, PAH's/PCBs, trace metals, natural toxins) including surface complexation models.
•Kinetics of sorption and degradation processes incl. diffusion.
•Hydrolysis of metal ions and organic pollutants
•Redox processes - degradation and mobility of pollutants.
•Photochemical processes, but direct and indirect.
•Sorption and activity of biological macromolecules (enzymes, proteins, DNA, biodetergents)
•Particles as pollutant transporters
•Coupled abiotic and microbial processes in pollutant degradation
•Pollutant remediation – how do we use insight from natural processes to develop remediation technologies.



Formel requirements
Academic qualifications:
Basic insight in chemistry, soil chemistry, and microbiology
Course info:
The PhD students following the course will be registered for use of the course info system (Absalon) where all teaching material and info is presented. PhD students should register for that by contacting the course responsible teacher.


Learning outcome
Knowledge on structure of particle surfaces in soil and aquatic environment
  • Knowledge on sorption and chemical reactions at the solid-solution interfaces
  • Knowledge on prime microbial degraders in soils, microbial degradation reactions and degradation pathways
  • Computation of sorption and degradation reactions at particle surfaces
  • Computation of speciation and estimation of pollutant chemical and physical properties
  • Insight on engineering of particle surfaces for sorption and degradation of pollutants.

  • Literature
    Hansen, HCB (ed)(2014): Soil Pollution – Biogeochemistry and Modelling. Approx. 400 pp.
  • Schwarzenbach et al. (2003) Environmental Organic Chemistry. Selected papers. 
  • Pepper et al. (2014) Environmental Microbiology. 
  • Journal articles (distributed at the course)
  • Equilibrium computation software (VMINTEQ) and other software (e.g. EpiSuite and chemical drawing programs). To be downloaded from the internet

  • Teaching and learning methods
    Lectures and computational exercises in the MSc part of the course (Soil and Water Pollution) + colloquia specific for PhD students.

    Remarks
    Price:
    Free of charge for PhD-students under the Open Market for Postgraudate Courses in Denmark and from NOVA-partners.


    Exam period:
    Time for hand-in of report to be agreed between course responsible and the ph.d. student


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