Department of Exposure Science

The Department of Exposure Science aims for a comprehensive characterization of complex mixtures of polar and nonpolar organic pollutions and anthropogenic particles across environmental media and human tissues. 

We characterize a wide range of organic pollutants in water bodies, sediments, and soils, considering both the total contamination and the bioavailable fraction that is relevant for uptake into organisms. We also analyze these pollutants in biological samples, determining their total body burden and organ-specific levels and patterns, amongst others to assess bioconcentration from the environment and biomagnification across foodwebs. 

To this end, we develop cutting-edge analytical tools including large-volume solid-phase extraction and passive equilibrium sampling as well as target, suspect, and nontarget screening methods to provide insights into the external and internal exposome of humans and various aquatic and terrestrial key organisms. Our toolbox furthermore includes the assessment of reactivity in chemoassays, the determination of partitioning and (bio)degradation, and the development of fit-for-purpose modeling tools. 

We conduct effect-directed analysis to identify chemical risk drivers in surface waters that are flagged for regulation. Our research on plastics covers the impacts of UV-induced weathering on their fate and chemical leaching, liberation of plastic-associated chemicals into water and biological fluids, and impacts of plastics in soils on the fate of pesticides. 

We investigate the sources, occurrence, environmental behavior, and fate of chemicals in different environmental compartments, including biota, to improve our understanding of the processes that determine their partitioning, bioaccumulation, and transformation. Based on this, we develop models to predict the distribution of chemicals within organisms and in the environment.

Our networks comprise close collaboration with scientists across the Research Unit CITE and beyond, at our linked universities (RWTH Aachen University, Goethe University Frankfurt/ Main and Leipzig University), at collaborating universities and research institutions across Germany, Europe and world-wide, collaborators at regulatory agencies, in the NORMAN network and the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.