Improving iron oxide-based adsorbents for phosphate recovery from surface water using Mössbauer spectroscopy as main analytical tool

This thesis focuses on recycling resources while preserving water quality and availability. This concept is at the basis of a healthy and sustainable society yet works needs to be done. Water scarcity will be a growing challenge that humanity will have to face in the coming years, due to poor resource management and the climate change crisis....

Adsorption of organic micropollutants by zeolite granules and subsequent ozone-based regeneration

Organic micropollutants (OMPs) that occur in the aquatic environment at trace levels are emerging concerns to society. Domestic wastewater is an important source. OMPs end up in surface water and groundwater via conventional municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), penetrating drinking water. Comprising pharmaceuticals, personal care...

Associating properties of dissolved organic matter to competitiveness against organic micropollutant adsorption onto activated carbon

To eliminate organic micropollutants (OMPs) from (surface) water, activated carbon adsorption is a cost-effective technology to remove a broad range of OMPs without producing any byproducts. However, co-existing dissolved organic matter (DOM), at much higher concentrations (mg C/L) than OMPs (ng/L-μg/L), inducing adsorption competition, can...

Molecular simulation of nanoporous materials: Application to metal-organic frameworks, zeolites, and cyclodextrins

In this thesis, molecular simulations of porous materials are performed, ranging from testing theories using simple models to predicting thermodynamic properties of realistic complex systems. Porous materials such as zeolites, MOFs, and cyclodextrins (CDs) are studied for waste water treatment and energy related applications. The purpose of the...

From waste to products: Valorizing food side streams to recover natural products

This thesis presents novel ways of recovering of valuable compounds from food industry side streams. It does so via evaluating two case studies for the valorization of such streams. These types of streams are often referred to as waste and discarded. However, they are rich sources of nutraceuticals (e.g polyphenols), proteins and dietary fiber....

Adsorption and Separation of C₈ Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Zeolites

The separation of C8 aromatic hydrocarbons (e.g. xylenes) is one of the most important processes in the petrochemical industry. Current research efforts are focused on materials that can decrease the energy consumption and increase the efficiency of the separation process. Industrial processing of C8 aromatics typically considers adsorption in a...

Tailoring the aroma of alcohol-free beer

The growing group of health-conscious consumers drives the development and sales in the market of low- or non-alcoholic beverages. In particular, sales in alcohol-free beer (AFB) has drastically gained in recent years, giving the incentive to further advance alcohol-free products. This thesis comprises the development of a new technology to...

Molecular simulation of tunable materials: Metal-organic frameworks & ionic liquids theory & application

Undoubtedly, materials that can be tuned on a molecular level offer tremendous opportunities. However, to understand and customize such materials is challenging. In this context, molecular simulation can be helpful. The work presented in this thesis deals with two types of materials, Metal-Organic Frameworks and Ionic Liquids, and the study with...

Phosphate recovery from wastewater via reversible adsorption

Eutrophication and the resulting formation of harmful algal blooms causes huge economic and environmental damages. Phosphorus (P) has been identified as a major limiting nutrient for eutrophication. Phosphorous concentration greater than 100 µg P/L is usually considered high enough for causing eutrophication. The strictest regulations however...

Multicomponent Adsorption of Volatile Organic Compounds in the Liquid Phase: Predictive Engineering Models, Molecular Simulations and Experiments

The aim of this thesis is to study multicomponent adsorption equilibria in the liquid phase. Most experimental data on adsorption reported in the literature are for binary systems with only a handful of studies on ternary systems. This is mainly because multicomponent adsorption data are considerably more difficult to measure than pure component...

Metal-Organic Frameworks For Adsorption Driven Energy Transformation: From Fundamentals To Applications

A novel class of materials, i.e. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), has successfully been developed that is extremely suited for application in heat pumps and chillers. They have a superior performance over commercial sorbents and may potentially contribute to considerable energy savings worldwide. Globally about 33 % of the energy consumption is...

Interfacial interactions and mass transfer at the interfacial region of bituminous hydrocarbon mixtures

The adhesion between bitumen and aggregate is a complex process with numerous of variables. To improve the understanding of the bond between bitumen and aggregates in road applications, this research focuses on preferential adsorption, which is one aspect of bitumen-aggregate adhesion. The main objective is to find out whether there is...

Molecular simulations in microporous materials: Adsorption and separation

The adsorption of water on hydrophobic zeolites such as silicalite and on hydrophilic MOF (metal-organic framework), Cu-BTC, is completely different, as described in chapters 2 and 4. While in hydrophobic materials water adsorption isotherms are very steep and difficult to measure, both experimentally and by simulation, in hydrophilic materials...

Diffusion and adsorption of linear and branched alkanes in zeolites

Branched hydrocarbons are preferred to linear hydrocarbons as ingredients in petrol, as they enhance the fuel octane number. By catalytic isomerisation linear hydrocarbons are converted into branched hydrocarbons, then it becomes necessary to separate the mixture. A variety of zeolites may be used for this purpose, either on thermodynamics or...

Opportunities and limitations of hydrogen storage in zeolitic clathrates

The feasibility of using zeolites, and more specifically the clathrasil subgroup, for hydrogen storage has been investigated by comparing their H2 loading rate and storage capacity to the technically required values. The uptake rate and capacity are determined by means of computational modelling for a large number of clathrasil structures. It...

Proteins at surfaces

Understanding protein adsorption is of vital importance in many fields of medicine and industry that can be divided into two categories: those in which it is desired to minimize adsorption, and those in which protein adsorption is desired. The first category covers materials for kidney dialysis membranes, implants in the bloodstream, vessels for...

Adsorption and the Adhesion of Polymer Melts on Metal Surfaces