Objectives of the Laboratory

The objectives of the Organic Geochemistry Research Laboratory (OGRL) include: (1) methods development for the lab analysis of organic chemicals, principally of agriculture and urban origination, and their degradation products, (2) studies of geochemical processes, including the degradation, transport, and fate of emerging organic chemicals in the hydrologic environment, and (3) water quality surveys for chemicals derived from agricultural and urban sources.

The major emphasis of the OGRL has been to assess the effects of agricultural nonpoint-source pollution on surface and ground water in the Midwest United States. Established and newly developed methods for pesticides and their degradation products such as the triazine and chloroacetanilide herbicides, glyphosate and isoxaflutole are being used in ongoing occurrence, fate, and geochemical transport studies. Surveys of taste-and-odor compounds and fungicides are also being conducted.

Recently, the group’s role was expanded to study the occurrence, fate and geochemical transport of pharmaceutical compounds from urban and agricultural sources. Methods have been developed to analyze antibiotics in ambient water, wastewater, and liquid waste from confined animal feeding operations and wastewater treatment facilities. This research focuses on the types of antibiotics used and their fate and transport as a result of hydrologic and geochemical processes.