CHM310H1

Environmental Fate and Toxicity of Organic Contaminants

Organic chemical contaminants surround us in our everyday lives (e.g. in medications, personal care products, flame retardants, refrigerants) and because of this, they are present in the environment and in ourselves. In this course we will explore the fate of chemicals in the environment as a whole, as well as in the body, to understand how chemicals can be designed to mitigate the risks associated with their use and unintended release. Specific topics will include environmental partitioning; environmentally-relevant transformation processes; the chemistry and effects of redox-active species; and the toxicity/detoxification of electrophilic species in the body. Skills in big data analysis and environmental modeling will be developed through an introduction to the R programming language at the beginner level.