Heileen Hsu-Kim

Research Interests:

Aquatic chemistry and geochemistry, trace element environmental chemistry, nanogeoscience, mercury biogeochemistry, water-particle surface processes.

Professor Heileen (Helen) Hsu-Kim's research interests include the chemical processes that affect the fate of trace metals in the environment. In particular, she is interested in the biogeochemical cycling of pollutant metals and interfacial processes controlling the fate and bioavilability of nanoparticles in aqueous systems.

Dr. Hsu-Kim's current research efforts focus on the role of reduced sulfur and natural organic matter for controlling mobility and toxicity of metals in the aquatic environment. The methodologies her group employs for this research include laboratory techniques for quantifying trace metal speciation, water-surface interactions, and in-situ applications of solid-state microelectrodes to determine important aquatic constituents in water and sediment.

Recent Publications: (More Publications)

• Zhang, T.; Kim, B.; Levard, C.; Reinsch, B. C.; Lowry, G. V.; Deshusses, M. A.; Hsu-Kim, H., Methylation of mercury by bacteria exposed to dissolved, nanoparticulate, and microparticulate mercuric sulfides, Environmental Science & Technology, vol In press (2012) [es203181m], [doi]
• Yang, X.; Gondikas, A. P.; Marinakos, S. M.; Auffan, M.; Liu, J.; Hsu-Kim, H.; Meyer, J. N., Mechanism of silver nanoparticle toxicity is dependent on dissolved silver and surface coating in Caenohabditis elegans, Environmental Science \& Technology, vol 46 no. 2 (2012), pp. 1119-1127 [es202417t], [doi]
• Gondikas, A. P.; Morris, A.; Reinsch, B. C.; Marinakos, S. M.; Lowry, G. V.; Hsu-Kim, H., Cysteine-induced modifications of zero-valent silver nanomaterials: Implications for particle surface chemistry, aggregation, dissolution, and silver speciation, Environmental Science \& Technology, vol In press (2012) [es3001757], [doi]
• Deonarine, A.; Lau, B. L. T.; Aiken, G. R.; Ryan, J. N.; Hsu-Kim, H., Effects of humic substances on precipitation and aggregation of zinc sulfide nanoparticles, Environmental Science \& Technology, vol 45 no. 8 (2011), pp. 3217--3223 [es1029798], [doi]
• Aiken, G. R.; Hsu-Kim, H.; Ryan, J. N., Influence of dissolved organic matter on the environmental fate of metals, nanoparticles, and colloids, Environmental Science \& Technology, vol 45 (2011), pp. 3196--3201 [es103992s], [doi]
• Zhang, T. and Hsu-Kim, H., Photolytic degradation of methylmercury enhanced by binding to natural organic ligands, Nature Geoscience, vol 3 no. 7 (2010), pp. 473--476 [NGEO892], [doi]
• Ruhl, L.; Vengosh, A.; Dwyer, G. S.; Hsu-Kim, H.; Deonarine, A., Environmental impacts of the coal ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee: An 18-month survey, Environmental Science \& Technology, vol 44 no. 24 (2010), pp. 9272--9278 [es1026739], [doi]