COURSES

Goals

To introduce the students the importance of speciation analysis in investigations of cycling of elements in environment and biological systems. Students will gain basic knowledge on chemistry of numerous elements that in various chemical forms exhibit different toxicity or are even essential. The basic tools of speciation analysis that enable reliable determination of different chemical species of elements in matrices of biological and environmental samples will be introduced. The role of chemical speciation will be presented for particular elements in the field of health, nutrition, uptake of particular chemical species to plants and in the investigations of biogeochemicaly cycling.

Curriculum

Introduction to the field of chemical speciation analysis. (Definition of chemical speciation regarding the oxidation state of element and speciation of organic and inorganic species of elements). - The role of speciation of elements regarding the toxicity and essentiality. (Some elements e.g. chromium exhibit different toxicity in different chemical forms. Hexavalent chromium is extremely toxic species, while trivalent chromium species are far less toxic and are even essential). - Basic analytical methods for speciation analysis. (Co-precipitation, selective extraction, spectrophotometry, chromatographic methods (HPLC, GC, electrophoresis…) coupled on-line and off-line with element specific detectors (ICPMS, ICP-OES, AFS, AAS, INAA) in combination with mass spectrometry. - Cycling and transformation of elements in environment. (Biogeochemical cycling of element species in system soil, water, air, the chemical species of elements in living organisms and foodstuffs). - Speciation analysis of selected elements (as for instance chromium, aluminium, platinum, ruthenium, zinc, nickel, tin, bromine, mercury, selenium, etc).