News
Jan 24, 2024 - ERC Proof of Concept
The European Research Council granted our Proof of Concept proposal, High Performance and Large-Scale Electrodes for Selective Ion Recovery. See also: WUR (UK), WUR (NL).
Oct 2023 - Anion-selective Membranes
Wetsus PhD student Daniele Chinello published his work on 'Selective separation of nitrate from chloride using PVDF-based anion-exchange membranes' in Desalination [doi] 
. PVDF-based anion-exchange membranes were successfully casted and the nitrate over chloride selectivity increased with increasing PVDF concentration. Currently, we extend this work to electrodialysis.
July 2023 - 6th BDI&E and Visit to NTHU in Taiwan
Jay Gamaethiralalage and I gave presentations during BDE&I in Tapei, Taiwan (July 3-5). Jay obtained a Best Paper Award for his presentation 'Rocking-Chair Capacitive Deionization for Phosphate Recovery via Rejection Mode using Ion-Exchange Membranes'. This work has been published in Desalination. [doi]
I completed my stay in Taiwan by visting Prof. Hu's Laboratory of Electrochemistry Advanced Materials at the National Tsing-Hua University.
May 7-17, 2023 - PhD Study Trip
April 21, 2023 - ERC Project: Results in Brief
Our ERC project E-motion has been highlighted in the ‘Results in Brief’ section of the European Commission’s CORDIS website. Use this link to access the English version. The article is also available in multiple other languages: DE, ES, FR, IT, PL.
March 14, 2023 - PhD Defence Ellen Dautzenberg
Today Ellen Dautzenberg defended her PhD thesis successfully. Thanks to the international PhD committee which consisted of Prof Thomas (TU Berlin), Dr Rob Ameloot (KU Leuven), Dr Monique van der Veen (TU Delft), and Prof Harry Bitter (WUR). Congratulations to Dr Dautzenberg and we wish her all the best with the next step in her career at iSQUARED AG.
December 13, 2022 - COF Hattrick + Cover
Over the last two months three of Ellen's manuscripts on Covalent Organic Frameworks were accepted for publication, in Microporous and Mesoporous Materials [doi], The Journal of Physical Chemistry C [doi], and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces [doi], respectively. All this alignes very well with the submission of her concept PhD thesis, which Ellen will defend on March 14, 2023.
November 21, 2022 - Visiting Research at IMDEA Energy
Louis de Smet enjoyed his 3-week research stay in the Unit of Electrochemical Processes IMDEA Energy, Madrid, Spain (hosts: Dr Jesús Palma, Dr Julio José Lado and Dr Enrique García – Quismondo). This visit was funded by the Excelencia María de Maeztu to learn more on capacitive deioniation and its links with ion energy storage. During this stay Louis de Smet also visted IMDEA Water, the Waste Water Treatment Plant of Rey Juan Carlos University (host: Dr Carlos Sotelo), Complutense University, (host: Prof. Mohamed Khayet Nov 10) and IMDEA Water (host:Dr. Juan Manuel Ortiz).
September 16, 2022 - PhD Defence Zexin Qian
Today Zexin Qian defended her thesis 'Selective Ion Separation by Supported Liquid Membranes under Electrodialysis Conditions' successfully at TU Delft. Dr Qian worked on a Wetsus project, together with Van der Knaap, under supervison of Dr. Miedema (Wetsus) and Prof. Sudhölter (TU Delft). Congratulations Zexin, well done!
August 29, 2022 - PhD Defence Sevil Sahin
Today Sevil Sahin defended her thesis 'GOTTA CATCH ‘EM: Tuning Ion Selectivity with Polyelectrolyte Multilayers in Capacitive Deionization' successfully at Wageningen University. Very good work, Sevil! All the best at University of Twente.
August 5, 2022 - GraphIAST @ GitHub and in CPC
Together with Simon van Hurne and Maarten Smulders, Ellen Dautzenberg developed GraphIAST, a simple and user-friendly software with a graphical user interface (GUI) for Ideal Adsorption Theory (IAST) calculations. This work was accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communications. [doi] The open source software is available via GitHub.
June 2, 2022 - Applied Surface Science Advances
Louis de Smet has become a member of the Advisory Editorial Board of Elsevier's Applied Surface Science Advances.
March 18, 2022 - NWA-ORC Grant
Our NWA-ORC proposal OBSeRVeD - Odour Based Selective Recognition of Veterinary Diseases got granted by the Dutch Research Council! Thank you Cas Damen from Saxion University of Applied Sciences for taking the lead in this! Read the NWO news release on this 5 MEuro project and the other funded proposals here.
Looking forward to colaborate with all consortium partners: Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Wageningen Research, Utrecht University, University of Twente, Radboud University, Delft University of Technology, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, VSParticle BV, Bronkhorst Hightech BV, LioniX International BV, NXP-Semiconductor Netherlands BV, Van Eck Bedrijfshygiëne B.V., Applied Nanolayers BV, GVP-Emmen, Springmountain BV, QL Polymer, Connecting Agri and Food, De Heus B.V., Royal GD, VAA Dataworks, Radisurf, World Veterinary Poultry Association, Royal Dutch Veterinary Association (KNMvD), AVINED, Philips.
March 16, 2022 - Cum Laude PhD Degree Kaustub Singh
Today Kaustub Singh defended his thesis 'Advanced Materials for Electro-Driven Ion Separation and Selectivity' successfully and obtained his doctorate with the designation cum laude. Well done, Kaustub!
March 1, 2022 - Special Issue Organic Coatings
Together with Dr Ayse Asatekin from Tufts Shool of Engineering I am guest editing a special issue on Organic Coatings for Elsevier's Applied Surface Science Advances. Call info here.
February 28, 2022 - Vici Grant from the Dutch Research Council
Louis de Smet was awarded a Vici Grant from the Dutch Research Council for his research proposal on advanced materials for ion-selective electrodes. NWO press release: UK or NL. WUR news items: UK or NL. More news items: 4TU (UK), Engineeringnet (NL).
November 9, 2021 - COFs with Reduced Pore Collapse
Our first COF study has been accepted for publication in Nanoscale. The work of Ellen Dautzenberg and Milena Lam shows the effect of methylating imine-linked Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) on the surface area and pore collapse and is supported by computional work performed in collaboration with Guanna Li. Last september this work was awarded a poster prize during EuroMOFs and this study will also be presented during CHemistry As INnovating Science (CHAINS), December 7-8, 2021. [doi]
September 20, 2021 - Highly Cited Paper
As of May/June 2021, Kaustub and Zexin’s publication entitled "Nickel hexacyanoferrate electrodes for high mono/divalent ion-selectivity in capacitive deionization" [doi] has been recognized as a Highly Cited Paper by the Web of Science of Clarivate Analytics as it received enough citations to place it in the top 1% of the academic field of Chemistry based on a highly cited threshold for the field and publication year.
September 14, 2021 - EuroMOFs
Ellen was awarded a poster prize during the 4th edition of EuroMOF, an European conference on metal organic frameworks and porous polymers for her poster entitled "Influence of Methylation on the Surface Area of Imine-Linked Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs)".
August 26, 2021 - Next-generation Membranes
Together with the University of Twente we reviewed recent work where advanced membrane properties stem directly from the material properties provided by polyelectrolytes, which now has been published by ACS Applied Polymer Materials [doi].
July 2021 - Advanced Functional Materials
Kaustub's work on employing vanadium to prepare intercalating electrodes to selectivily remove divalents from water has been accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials. This work has been performed in collaboration with the University of Liverpool, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and Wetsus. Earlier work from our lab on nickel-based electrodes – published in Desalination [link] – showed a preference for the intercalation of monovalent ions, so the selectivity can be tuned by choosing the proper transition metal. In the current work qantum-chemical computations were performed to rationalize the selectivity that we found experimentally.
June 2021 - Talks @ ESEE 2021 & ISP 2021
This month some of our group members virtually travelled to Leeuwarden and Shanghai to deliver oral presentations at the 12th European Symposium on Electrochemical Engineering (ESEE 2021) and the 13th International Symposium on Polyelectrolytes (ISP 2021). Kaustub Singh will present his work on 'Tunable Ion Selectivity in Capacitive Deionization with Prussian Blue Analogues', while Sevil Sahin will share her results on 'QCM-D Study of Interactions between Cations with Crown Ether-Modified, Bio-based Polyelectrolytes'.
May 10-14, 2021 - Talks @ CDIE 2021
During the 5th International Conference on Capacitive Deionization Electroscorption (CDIE), virtually from Atlanta, Sevil Sahin and Louis de Smet gave oral presentations on ion selectivity. Thanks for the organization Marta Hatzell, Roland Cusick and Xiao Su! The 2022 edition will be in Taiwan.
March 1, 2021 - Front Cover EES
Our review Recent Advances in Ion Selectivity with Capacitive Deionization is featured on the front cover of March 2021 issue of Energy & Environmental Science [doi].
Jan 6, 2021 - CDI Update
Today our review Recent Advances in Ion Selectivity with Capacitive Deionization was published online in Energy & Environmental Science [doi]. See also the following news items, articles and interviews: WUR (UK), WUR (NL), H2OWaternetwerk (NL), and De Ingenieur (NL). And on Christmas Day our study Simultaneous, Monovalent Ion Selectivity with Polyelectrolyte Multilayers and Intercalation Electrodes in Capacitive Deionization was accepted for publication in Chemical Engineering Journal. A good start of 2021!
December 3, 2020 - VLAG PhD Fellowship for Kaustub
Kaustub Singh obtained a VLAG Fellowship to join the Electrochemical Processes Unit of the IMDEA Energy Institute in Madrid, Spain. VLAG is one of the Graduate Schools at Wageningen University and a Dutch acronym for Nutrition, Food Technology, Agro-biotechnology and Health. During his research stint Kaustub will work on scaling Capacitive Deionization electrodes. Felicidades y buena suerte Kaustub!
November 23, 2020 - Energy & Environmental Science
Our review Recent Advances in Ion Selectivity with Capacitive Deionization has been accepted for publication in Energy & Environmental Science. This work has been performed together with Seoul National University, Yale University, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University, and Wetsus. Last week Louis de Smet gave an invited lecture on this matter during the 2020 Drylands, Deserts & Desertification Conference (abstract), which was organized by the Ben Gurion University (BGU), Israel.
September 21, 2020 - New Thesis Students
Recently, three thesis students joined our group to work on materials and methods for chemical selectivity: Milena Lam (MSc), Emma van Weeren (BSc), and Megan Steinvoort (BSc). Welcome and good luck!
June 26, 2020 - Cover ACS AM&I
Our recent article "Modification of Cation-Exchange Membranes with Polyelectrolyte Multilayers to Tune Ion Selectivity in Capacitive Deionization" by Sahin et al. has been highlighted as a cover of the late June issue of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
April 2, 2020 - Another NWO Grant for PhD Project
Our public-private Launchpad for Innovative Future Technology (LIFT) proposal on Selective and low-drift ion sensors (SALDIS) has been approved. Together with imec-OnePlanet, Plantlab, and Metrohm we will be using chemical techniques to curb degradation processes and combat pollution if ion-selective sensors through the use of novel polymer materials. A PhD vacancy will follow soon. NWO news item. Resource news item (Dutch).
January 20, 2020 - NWO Funding for Phd Project with Wetsus
Our research proposal on Advanced Materials for Selective Nitrate/Chloride Separations (Anchor) has been awarded in the collaboration programme of NWO with Wetsus. Link to NWO news item.
December 10, 2019 - 1st Prize NanopLESStic Team
Team NanopLESStic was announced as winner of the Holland Chemistry Student Competition 2019 at the national chemistry meeting CHAINS. Laura Akkerman, Ezra Bekkering, and Dorien Westert, all Molecular Life Sciences students at Wageningen University, won the 2019 Holland Chemistry Student competition organized by the topsector chemistry and NWO. They convinced the jury with their idea for a filter material to remove nanoplastic from water. Links to the WUR and NWO site.
December 4, 2019 - Prize for Zexin Qian
At the 4th International Conference on Desalination using Membrane Technology, 1-4 December 2019 in Perth, Australia, Zexin Qian won the 3rd prize for her oral presentation "Selective potassium separation by a combination of a liquid supported membrane and electrodialysis". Dutch and English.October 10, 2019 - PhD Defense of Mohammad Amirilargani
Today Mohammad succesfully defended his PhD thesis on organic solvent nanofiltration. Congrats! All the best at the European Membrane Institute Twente. [link to thesis].
June 4, 2019 - NanopLESStic Team in Final
Honour students Molecular Life Sciences Ezra Bekkering, Dorien Westert and Laura Akkerman made it to the final of sixth edition of the Holland Chemistry Student Competition. They will spend most of the summer break in the labs of Biobased Chemistry and Organic Chemistry to work on a filter that adsorbs nanoplastic from aqueous streams. Links to the news item at the NWO site: Dutch and English.
March 5, 2019 - Cover Highlight ES&T
Our recent article "Functionalized Anion-Exchange Membranes Facilitate Electrodialysis of Citrate and Phosphate from Model Dairy Wastewater" by Paltrinieri et al. has been highlighted as front cover of the early March issue of Environmental Science & Technology. See also the Wetsus news letter of April.
March 1, 2019 - Welcome Rafael
Welcome to Rafael Linzmeyer Zornitta (Federal University of São Carlos, Brasil) who joins our group as a postdoc to work on CDI.
February 22, 2019 - PhD Defence Laura Paltrinieri
Today Laura defended her thesis successfully at Delft University of Technology. Great job Laura and good luck with your postdoc project at Wetsus.
November 1, 2018 - Two New Group Members
Welcome to Ellen Dautzenberg (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) and Jay Gamaethiralalage (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) who started their PhD today.