IPREM

located in Pau, France deals with environmental research and materials. IPREM closely collaborates with the University of Pau and Pays de L’Adour (UPPA). The IPREM/UPPA/LCABIE (30 permanent scientists) mainly conducts research in the field of speciation analysis of trace metals in the field of environmental life sciences, pioneering novel approaches to unravel the distribution and fate of metals and metalloid species between different compartments of the environment for more than 20 years and mainly Hg.

Most of the developments have been achieved using hyphenated techniques either LC or GC coupled to a variety of atomic detectors. In order to ascertain the quality of the environmental results, reference materials have been developed and novel sample preparation techniques and more recently introduced speciated isotopic dilution methods to improve both precision and accuracy in environmental determination but has also used these techniques to unravel the reactivity of Hg species in the environment and in model systems.

The key areas of expertise include Isotope imaging, basic and applied research using MC-ICP-MS and LA-ICP-MS for environmental research, a new domain on trace elements in foods recently developed using isotopic signatures and
bioimaging for life sciences using NanoSIMS (http://iprem.univ-pau.fr/live/, http://lcabie.com). They have recently pioneered the development of micro- and nano-plastics characterization using an array of advanced analytical technique including Pyrolysis GC/MS and applied it to coastal environments.