Dr. Julia Lu
Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University, Canada
Dr. Julia Lu is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University, Canada. She received her PhD degree from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Her research focuses on the development, evaluation, validation and application of novel techniques to identify and quantify different physical and chemical forms of toxic substances in water, air, soil and biological tissue samples; environmental pollution; biogeochemistry of toxic substances in the natural environment and their effects on ecosystem and human health. She has so far co-authored 55 papers published in various scientific journals including "Analytical Chemistry", "Environmental Research", "Geophysical Research Letters", "Environmental Science", "Nature", …

Speech title: Chemical speciation and its applications to study water quality and pollution

Abstract: Chemical species are specific chemical forms of an element. Since different chemical species of an element have different composition (e.g, atomic/molecular, isotopic, electronic), these species will have different physical and chemical property, reactivity, leading to different mobility in the environment, bioavailability, and toxicity. Chemical speciation is, therefore, important in developing technologies for emission control and waste water treatment, understanding the transport, transformation and fate of pollutants in the environment, and accessing the effects/impacts on natural ecosystem and human health. This presentation discusses the approaches for chemical speciation and their applications to study water quality and pollution in the natural environment.