Mira Petrović

Mira Petrović

Institut Català de Recerca de l'Aigua

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

ICREA Research Professor since December 2005. PhD in Chemistry (1995), Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, Croatia. From 1999-2011 research scientist at the Department of Environmental Chemistry, Institute for Environmental Assessment and Water Studies (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona. Since July 2011 senior researcher at the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), Girona, Spain. At ICRA she is the head of Water Qualty Area and responsible for the research line Contaminants in water treatment processes. She has participated in over 20 EU projects since 1999; published 220 papers in SCI journals (Hirsch Index 74); edited 8 books and published 36 book chapters. She was Highly Cited Researcher (ranked in the top 1% by citations) in 2018 in the field of Environment/Ecology and in 2019 in the cross-field according to Clarivate Analytics.


Research interests

My main expertise is in the field of analytical environmental chemistry, specifically analysis of trace organic contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupting compounds and surfactants by advanced mass spectrometric techniques (liquid chromatography-tandem and hybrid MS) and the study of their fate and behaviour in the aquatic environment and during wastewater and drinking water treatment. Specific research lines are: (i) suspect screening, non-target analysis and fingerprinting of organic substances in wastewater and receiving environment, (ii) the study of biotic and abiotic transformation of emerging contaminants, identification of transformation products, elucidation of transformation pathways; (iii) the study of occurrence and distribution of emerging contaminants in aquatic environment and environmental risk assessment and (iv) sustainable wastewater management; application of innovative wastewater treatment technologies; innovative practices for reuse of reclaimed waters.

Selected publications

– Gusmaroli L, Mendoza E, Petrovic M & Buttiglieri G 2020, ‘How do WWTPs operational parameters affect the removal rates of EU Watch list compounds?’, Science Of The Total Environment, 714, 136773.

– Acuña V, Bregoli F, Font C, Barceló D, Corominas LL, Ginebreda A, Petrovic M, Rodríguez-Roda I, Sabater S & Marcé R 2020, ‘Management actions to mitigate the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in river networks in a global change context’, Environment International 143,105993

– Senta I, Rodríguez-Mozaz S, Corominas L & Petrovic M 2020, ‘Wastewater-based epidemiology to assess human exposure to personal care and household products – A review of biomarkers, analytical methods, and applications‘, Trends in Environmental Analytical Chemistry 28,e00103

– Celic M, Skrbic BD, Insa S, Zivancev J, Gros M  & Petrovic M 2020, ‘Occurrence and assessment of environmental risks of endocrine disrupting compounds in drinking, surface and wastewaters in Serbia’, Environmental Pollution, 262, 114344.

– Marti, Elisabet; Gros, Meritxell; Boy-Roura, Merce; Ovejero, Jonatan; Busquets, Anna M.; Colon, Joan; Petrovic, Mira; Ponsa, Sergio 2020, ‘Pharmaceuticals removal in an on-farm pig slurry treatment plant based on solid-liquid separation and nitrification-denitrification systems’, Waste Management, 102, 412 – 419.

– Previsic, Ana; Rozman, Marko; Mor, Jordi-Rene; Acuna, Vicenc; Serra-Compte, Albert; Petrovic, Mira; Sabater, Sergi 2020, ‘Aquatic macroinvertebrates under stress: Bioaccumulation of emerging contaminants and metabolomics implications’, Science Of The Total Environment, 704, 135333.

– da Silva, Josiel Jose; da Silva, Bianca Ferreira; Stradiotto, Nelson Ramos; Petrovic, Mira; Gago-Ferrero, Pablo; Gros, Meritxell 2020, ‘Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE) and QuEChERS evaluation for the analysis of antibiotics in agricultural soils.’, Methodsx, 7, 101171 – 101171.


Selected research activities

Editor in chief of Trends in Environmental Analyticla Chemistry (Elsevier) i.f. 7.059 .