Environmental Chemistry

Ian Pulford, Hugh Flowers, Mike Jarvis

One area of work focuses on the remediation of contaminated land and water – a particularly important topic in both the developed and less-developed areas of the world, requiring considerable skills in analytical chemistry and its applications [1, 2]. Much of this work involves collaboration with colleagues at SUERC– the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre.

A typical fieldwork location for environmental chemistry.

Familiar biomaterials such as wood and plant cell walls are undergoing intense investigation (Jarvis) using a combination of chemical and spectroscopic techniques to establish how the underlying molecular structures give rise to such advantageous material properties [3, 4]. Much of this work is funded by a Strategic Research Development Grant from SHEFC in collaboration with researchers in the Forestry Commission and other Scottish universities as part of the SIRT Project (Scottish Integrated Research in Timber).

Photomicrograph of cellulose fibre structures in plant cell walls.

[1] Dickinson, N.M., Pulford, I.D. (2005). Cadmium phytoextraction using short-rotation coppice Salix: The evidence trail. Environment International, 31 (4), pp. 609-613.

[2] Pulford, I.D., Watson, C. (2003). Phytoremediation of heavy metal-contaminated land by trees - A review. Environment International, 29, pp. 529-540.

[3] Šturcováa, A., Eichhorn, S.J., Jarvis, M.C. (2006) Vibrational spectroscopy of biopolymers under mechanical stress: Processing cellulose spectra using bandshift difference integrals. Biomacromolecules, 7, pp. 2688-2691.

[4] Jarvis, M. (2003). Cellulose stacks up. Nature, 426 (6967), pp. 611-612.