Head: dr hab. Katarzyna Szewczuk-Karpisz, prof. Instytutu
Profile of scientific activity:
- surface physical chemistry of agricultural materials: mineral and organic soils, clay minerals, organic matter, plant roots, etc.
- gas, vapour and ions adsorption processes; surface areas, surface energetic non-homogeneity (distribution of adsorbing centres, average adsorption energy)
- surface charge properties, distribution of charge generating surface functional groups, surface charge density
- geometric heterogeneity of solid surfaces (fractal dimension)
- porosity (mercury intrusion porosimetry), microporosity, structure formation, stability and improvement (soil conditioners), aggregation, flocculation
- wettability of solid phase, surface free energy and its components
- soil degradation processes -acidification, alkalization, salinization, heavy metal and organic pollution, DOC leaching
- impact of stress conditions on plants and plant roots
- decontamination of polluted soils, physicochemical melioration of degraded soils