Michel Banet (PhD)

Ever increasing quantities of man-made substances are released into the environment. A decisive entry route is wastewater from households and industrial sites. Despite the treatment of wastewater, many substances are not completely degraded and thus enter surface waters. These substances include, for example, pharmaceuticals, food additives or production waste. Since such substances are suspected of causing long-lasting damage to flora and fauna, it is important to have effective analytical methods which are able to quantify these substances in surface water but also in biota, e.g. aquatic organisms. In my doctoral thesis, I develop and optimize efficient extraction, separation and detection methods. By establishing such analytical methods, it will then be possible to make decisions for the future handling of harmful substances and to introduce suitable regulations for the disposal and reprocessing of wastewater, for example.

In order to obtain an analytical method that is as simple, fast and effective as possible, I am trying to exploit the possibilities of the so-called QuEChERS method (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Efficient, Rugged and Safe). This promising extraction method combines a solid-liquid extraction with a liquid-liquid extraction and thus opens up the application to a broad field of analytes and matrices. Only a small amount of sample and solvent is required and, in addition, it is very easy to implement a further purification by means of dispersive solid-phase extraction, when required. This saves time and costs compared to other extraction methods. In addition to liquid chromatography, electromigrative separation techniques are used to separate the analytes in order to reach a higher comprehensiveness with regard to their very different polarities. Detection is then carried out by mass spectrometry.

My work is partly embedded in the project Effect-Net (http://www.effect-net-wasser.de/de/14145). In this joint project financed by the Baden-Württemberg Water Network, the influences of food additives and pharmaceuticals on living organisms in the water ecosystem are investigated. My part of the task is to develop analytical methods suitable to determine the amounts of substances of various pollutants taken up by living organisms.

Teaching
Lecture seminars Bachelor Analytical Chemistry
Practical course Physical Chemistry Bachelor
Master module practical course in Analytical Chemistry