Publications by authors named "Sophie Lennartz"
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the preventive use of antimicrobials such as quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) surged worldwide. As cationic and surface-active biocides, QACs are only partly removed during wastewater treatment and may cause adverse ecological effects in the downstream environment. To understand the environmental consequences of increased disinfectant use during the pandemic, we investigated spatiotemporal QAC concentration trends in the suspended particulate matter (SPM) of three diverse German rivers.
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- Biodegradability testing in soil aims to identify safe synthetic organic chemicals but faces challenges due to non-extractable residues (NERs) that obscure the analysis.
- Current methods like radiocarbon and stable isotope labeling struggle to distinguish harmful NERs from harmless biomolecules produced by microbial activity.
- The study introduces stable hydrogen isotope labeling to help differentiate these residues, revealing that most soil-bound hydrogen in NERs comes from harmful chemicals rather than beneficial microbial sources, potentially enhancing testing methodologies.