Marine Chemistry

Department of Marine Chemistry

The Chemistry department runs a state-of-the-art lab, which is accredited by the Israeli National Laboratory Authority of Israel.

The lab has numerous analytical instruments and highly proficient technicians that hold either a BSc or MSc. There are 6 PhDs (3 senior researchers and 3 specialists) in the department that are experts in a variety of fields, including marine litter, marine carbon system, heavy metals in water, sediments and marine biota, dissolved inorganic and organic nutrients, stable isotopes, chemical sensor development, carbonate chemistry and trace metal proxies, biogeochemical and hydrodynamic 3D and box modeling.

The entire department is an important contributor to the Israel National Monitoring Program, which includes monitoring of water and sediment quality, heavy metals in marine biota, marine litter in ports, marinas, coastal waters, open and deep-sea waters, sediments, and biota.

Furthermore, researchers from the department coordinate and conduct compliance monitoring programs for all of the desalination plants along the Israeli coast as well as the outfall of a large pesticide plant in the south of Israel and the outfall of a sewage treatment plant that services the entire population of central Israel (~4,000,000).

Furthermore, researchers from the department run funded and non-funded research programs including: The effect of seawater chemistry on the intensity of lightning; the effects of RF transmission on biogenic calcification in reef building corals; modeling the spatial distribution of fecal indicator bacteria in coastal waters discharged from coastal streams during winter floods and their deposition in bottom sediments; the contribution of submarine groundwater discharge to the alkalinity budget of coral reefs; the influence of vitamin B12 on marine primary production; Sedimentary fluxes of nutrients, carbon and alkalinity to the open sea water column; The potential of desalination brine discharge to sequester CO2 in the deep sea; Electrochemical fixing of atmospheric CO2 in desalination brines and commercial carbonate production; The anthropogenic impact on the eastern Mediterranean water column silica budget; The contribution of sub marine groundwater discharge to the carbon and alkalinity budget of the Mediterranean Sea; The bio accumulation of heavy metals in various deep sea marine biota and their relation to external organic carbon supply and internal recycling; The contribution of polluted groundwater to the mercury but and bio-accumulation in Haifa Bay.