Dr. Thorsten Hüffer

Globally, chemical pollution is irreversibly affecting ecosystems. The fate of these chemicals in the environment is largely governed by phase transfer processes. Since his PhD at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), Thorsten has investigated how biotic and abiotic processes change plastic-xenobiotic interactions in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Recently, he has been exploring how environmental factors impact the release of additives from plastics, like phthalates, causing them to become long-lived sources of pollution in environmental systems. Similarly, he investigates the factors that shape the continuous leaching of xenobiotics from tire materials and their products, which can be take up by agricultural plants, thereby entering the human food web.