Dr.-Ing. Thorsten Reemtsma, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Jekel
The research project MOBIL focuses on factors influencing the mobilisation and transformation of organic contaminants (e.g. PAHs, PCBs) in urban soils. In the second stage of this project (MOBIL II), the importance of the organic material quality (e.g. hydrophobicity, drying) and the influence of biofilms on the release of organic contaminants in urban soils will be emphasized. In order to study the kinetics and extent of sorption, desorption and transformation processes in biofilms, laboratory studies with biofilm reactors will be performed in cooperation with TP MIKRO. Leaching experiments will be continued to study the importance of microbial factors on contaminant release. In addition, transformation processes of organic contaminants in urban soils and their importance for the mass transfer will be investigated. The detection, identification and quantification of polar transformation products in soil leachates as well as in samples of the biofilm reactors will be performed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).
Investigations will be done in cooperation with the other groups of the INTERURBAN project. For example, biofilm reactors are inoculated with different bacterial soil isolates and mixed soil communities by TP MIKRO. Furthermore, the importance of hydrophobicity on contaminant release will be investigated together with TP BODEN. Leaching experiments and contaminant analysis will also be applied to soil samples from microcosms, which are set up by TP FAUNA to investigate the influence of soil fauna on transformation processes in urban soils.
Dr. Thorsten Reemtsma
Romy Becker
Daniel Wicke
Elke Profft