AGR-159. Pesticide Residues

The group's research thrusts include developing new methods to analyse pests in food crops and also how these residues behave during food crop production; developing new methods for analysing emergent pollutants in waste water treatment plant effluent, sludge and marine sediments and also running toxicity bio-assay tests on natural and waste water and applying water decontamination treatments.

The group is equipped with modern mass spectrometry systems coupled with gas and liquid chromatography, as well as automated solid and liquid treatment systems and systems for extracting volatile samples (purge and trap).

These systems are applied in developing and validating test methods for a range of purposes: analysing pesticides in foodstuffs, detecting and assessing water and sediment pollution processes, controlling environmental quality values in marine environments, quality control in phytosanitary products and in the pharmaceutical industry, determining acute toxicity in synthetic compounds, assessing the toxicity of natural waters and industrial effluent, and analysing the products of photochemical degradation resulting from natural processes and water decontamination treatments.