June 26, 2024

Today was the Final Oral Examination for Yuening’s PhD thesis entitled  “Passive sampling for semi-volatile organic chemicals in the atmosphere: theory, calibration, and application“. Congratulations Dr. Li!

June 22, 2024

Holly, from the Hui group, just published her work identifying the compounds that are responsible for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor activity in endangered S. Lawrence belugas being higher than in Arctic belugas. She found relatively polar substances, including some dyes and natural indoles. Read the paper in Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts.

June 5, 2024

Yuhao latest paper was just published in ES&T. Continuing our collaboration with the Toronto Zoo, we used a non-invasive approach to explore how the seasonal changes in food intake affect the thermodynamics of biomagnification in three polar bears. With the assistance of microbiologist Terry Bell, we also studied whether the gut microbiome has a role to play in this context.

May 23, 2024

ES&T Letters just published Chengkang’s study examining global source-receptor relationships for short-, medium- and long-chain chlorinated paraffins with the help of the BETR-Global model. The answer differs for different remote regions for different time periods and for different chlorinated paraffin mixtures.

May 17, 2024

A project that was started 20 years ago has finally come to fruition! We used our XAD-based passive sampler to collect POP vapours from the atmosphere at 20 sites of the global GAPS network – from 2005 to 2016. This allowed us to assess whether releases of POPs have declined or remained steady over that decade. To our great surprise, global air concentrations of several unintentionally produced POPs, such as hexachlorobutadiene and hexachlorobenzene, actually increased, suggesting that the Stockholm Convention is not effective in curbing the releases of these types of contaminants. Read the paper in ES&T Letters for details of this work, which was a massive collaborative effort by Chuba, Michelle (an undergrad researcher with our group for several years), Ying and Anya.

May 11, 2024

Last summer Michael and Frank commented on a draft by ECHA to nominate the cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes as POPs under the Stockholm Convention. They just published an opinion piece advocating for more input by independent scientists in the decision making process surrounding chemical regulation.

April 18, 2024

In an effort led by Jenny, we found that unintentionally produced polychlorinated biphenyls are commonly found in Canadian air, suggesting the existence of wide-spread emissions related to the manufacturing and application of pigments and silicone rubber. This is described in our first paper in the new journal ACS ES&T Air.

April 16, 2024

Yesterday, Desmond has completed his thesis entitled “Measuring the Effect of Dietary Microplastic on Biomagnification Potential of Environmental Contaminants and Plastic Additives” and is now all set to graduate with a MSc. Well done.

February 27, 2024

Chengkang’s latest paper in ES&T explores the “chemical resolution” that is required to reliably simulate exposure to complex chlorinated paraffin mixtures. Do we have to perform thousands of simulations for individual isomers or can we simplify the procedure by simulating congeners or homologue groups?

February 22, 2024

The SETAC Globe published a memorial piece on Don Mackay today, in which Frank, Jon, and Frank are highlighting defining elements of Don’s “scientific character” and are recalling some of the many contributions by this founding pioneer in the field of environmental organic chemistry.