Advanced Adsorption and Oxidation

Research Areas

The working group focuses on the development of new materials and physico-chemical processes for water treatment. Our aim is to protect and remediate water - a resource under severe pressure from climate change and urbanisation - using technologies that are both efficient and sustainable.
Adsorption processes are well established in environmental technology because they are reliable and easy to use. We aim to develop adsorbents based on renewable or regionally available raw materials with improved selectivity (biochar and functionalised activated carbon). We are developing processes for adsorbent recycling directly at the point of use, applying wet oxidation for regeneration (e.g. for zeolite adsorbents, TrapOx®).
The transition to a decarbonised society is an incentive for the future use of green electricity from renewable energy sources in environmental technology. Electrosorption combined with electro-oxidation is being developed as a concentrate-and-destroy strategy to address the problem of highly persistent and mobile trace contaminants, such as short-chain PFAS, that threaten our water resources.

Team:

Ongoing projects:

• On-site regenerable zeolite adsorber for PFAS removal from industrial wastewater (ZeoPFAS)
• Removal of PFAS (poly- and perfluorinated alkyl compounds) from environmental media, application of electrosorption for water treatment (FABEKO)

• Sorbent-enhanced blue-green infrastructure for pollutant removal from urban runoff (CLEANER)