Helbling Research Group

Summer 2022 is winding down, but the HRG had a great time meeting with old friends and colleagues at conferences all summer long!

• Damian, Paige, and Stephanie were thrilled to see Michael Zumstein again at the GRC: Water!
• Damian and Ri had the opportunity to catch up at the AEESP conference in St. Louis!
• Damian and Nayantara learned a TON at the PFAS workshop in Long Beach!
• And Paige knocked it out of the park with another oral presentation at ACS Chicago!

…TECHCON 2022 in Austin, TX and the RemTEC Summit on Emerging Contaminants in Westminster CO are on deck for the Fall! Hope to see some of you there!

Congratulations to Casey (PhD) and Danyeh (BS) for their graduation this Spring! We are so happy for you and excited to see what your futures bring!!

Interested in suspect or nontarget screening of PFAS in water? How confident are you in your PFAS annotations?

We asked those questions amongst a global network of collaborators, and developed a new way to communicate confidence in your PFAS annotations. Read all about it in our new Global Perspective published in ES&T Letters!

Congratulations, Dr. Casey Ching!

Introducing  →  next-generation cyclodextrin polymers!

We have developed a novel and versatile porous β-cyclodextrin polymer platform that removes anionic PFASs at unprecedentedly low adsorbent loadings. The modular, high-yield synthesis will also enable us to study different removal mechanisms for short-chain and long-chain PFASs.

Another great collaboration with the Dichtel Group at Northwestern!

Ri was the recipient of the 2022 AEESP MS Thesis Award for her thesis titled, “Exploring the factors that determine the adsorption of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances on conventional adsorbents and novel cyclodextrin polymers with different surface properties.”

Congratulations, Ri! What a tremendous honor!!

Happy to share a new review paper co-authored with colleagues at the Technische Universität München (Technical University of Munich).

In this manuscript, we discuss the physical and biogeochemical factors that influence the biotransformation of trace organic contaminants in the subsurface during managed aquifer recharge and summarize approaches to optimize the performance of managed aquifer recharge systems to enhance the types of biotransformations that are performed.

Check it out with free access at this link until May 4, 2022!

We are very happy to share the results of our long-term collaboration with Erika Tenorio and her students at the Panamerican Agricultural School, Zamorano, Honduras. Over the course of several years, we explored agricultural practices in Honduras and collected surface water samples to assess the impacts of agriculture-derived micropollutants in water resources of Honduras. We measured 30 biocides in at least one sample from across the sample set, and discovered associations between biocide occurrence or concentration and land-use and hydrological conditions.

This work was led by undergraduate researcher Anya Sherman and we are thrilled to publish this work in the H2Open Journal to provide free open access to anyone in the world!

Stephanie passed her Admission to Candidacy Exam (aka A Exam)! Another important milestone to check off the list. Congratulations Stephanie!!

Happy to share the results of a great collaboration led by postdoc Youn Jeong Choi from the Colorado School of Mines (and currently at Perdue University) along with colleagues Chris Higgins, Chris Oliveras, and Jinxia Liu – in this work we report on the known pathways by which PFAS derived from aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) are biotransformed in the subsurface environment.

Use this link for FREE open access to the article until April 7, 2022!