Aoife Canavan

Project: Isotopic Techniques to Assess the Fate of Sulfamethoxazole

The continuous introduction of antibiotics into the environment by wastewater discharge, animal manure, and aquaculture is of great societal concern. An important representative of antibiotics is sulfamethoxazole, which is nowadays mainly used in factory farming as a preventative measure. Understanding the degradation pathways and the underlying reaction mechanisms of sulfamethoxazole is therefore of great importance, to provide deep insights into its flow through animal manure, surfaces, and groundwater, with crucial results for irrigation and agricultural runoff in the environment. We aim to gain this knowledge with a combination of field and lab experiments, using isotopic techniques including Liquid Chromatography hyphenated with Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (LC-IRMS), Derivatization Gas Chromatography hyphenated with Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (GC-IRMS), and Electrospray Quadrupole-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry.

Education:

Since 02/2022
Ph.D. thesis in Analytical Chemistry with Prof. Dr. Martin Elsner
Institute of Hydrochemistry, Chair of Analytical Chemistry and Water Chemistry, Technical University of Munich

10/2019 – 09/2021
Master’s degree in Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich
Master Thesis: Quartz Crystal Microbalance as a Tool for Online Monitoring of Natural Organic Matter during Clean-Up of Organic Extracts
Institute of Hydrochemistry, Chair of Analytical Chemistry and Water Chemistry, Technical University of Munich

10/2016 – 11/2019
Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich
Bachelor Thesis: Studies on the Preparation of the Heterocyclic Key Intermediate in the Synthesis of the Natural Product HB-372 peak 8
Chair of Biomimetic Catalysis, Technical University of Munich