Environmental Chemistry

Environmental Chemistry focuses on processes governing natural and man-made ecosystems. An understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the flow of energy and cycling of materials through natural and man-made ecosystems is essential to address and avoid environmental problems. Water is one of the key media through which elements are transported within and between ecosystems, and it is also an important vehicle for the transport of anthropogenic toxic chemicals.

Faculty

Sheila Frankel, Research Associate
Philip M. Gschwend, Professor
Harold F. Hemond, Professor
Jesse Kroll, Assistant Professor

Representative Research Areas

  • Chemical limnology of arsenic and chromium
  • Subsurface hydrology of a riverine wetland
  • In situ measurement of volatile organic carbon compounds and metabolic gases by membrane-inlet mass spectrometry
  • Trace gas emission from northern peatlands
  • Water and chemical exchange between streams and groundwater
  • Fate of organic compounds in the environment
  • Influences of colloids on chemicals in the environment
  • Predicting compound properties from chemical structure (structure activity relationships, a.k.a. SAR)
  • Geochemical cycling in wetlands and freshwater ecosystems
  • Fate and transport of toxic metals in the environment
  • Instrumentation for in situ chemical analysis of groundwaters and surface waters
  • New mass spectrometric techniques for measuring environmental organic species
  • Mechanisms of organic aerosol formation and evolution

Research Projects

Collaborative Arenas

Many faculty and students in the Environmental Chemistry group are affiliated with programs both within and outside MIT. For instance, group faculty play an active role in the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program in Oceanography, which offers graduate degrees in all aspects of oceanographic science and engineering, including physics, biology, chemistry, geology and engineering. Students interested in environmental science related to the ocean may want to consider applying to that program.

Other projects at MIT involve collaboration with the Departments of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Chemical Engineering; Biology; and Chemistry. Members of the faculty are also involved in MIT's Center for Global Change Science and the Earth System Initiative.