Bowers Lab

Research in the Bowers Lab

Many contaminants, such as pesticides or pharmaceuticals, are not fully mineralized during wastewater treatment processes, leading to their ubiquity in the environment. This is especially true of fluorinated contaminants, due to the persistence imparted by the strength of the C-F bond.  Effluent from wastewater treatment plants is often discharged into surface waters such as lakes, rivers, and streams, where any remaining contaminants can undergo a variety of chemical transformations. Research in the Bowers lab focuses primarily on transformations driven by light in these surface water environments. Since light is also often leveraged in wastewater and drinking water treatment plants, we also seek to understand the fate of persistent contaminants in these built environments.

Our lab simulates photochemical and matrix conditions of surface water environments and/or water treatment plants in the laboratory using photoreactor systems. Then, using liquid chromatography (LC) systems with either an ultraviolet (UV) or mass spectrometer (MS) detector, students can measure the rate of the loss of the contaminant of interest. LC-MS may also be used alongside other instrumentation (GC-ECD and GC-MS) to identify and measure transformation products, which helps us to elucidate chemical mechanisms and determine which contaminants are challenging to remediate.