PhD position on “Electrochemical desalination for the removal of salts and nutrients”

In this project, we aim to develop electrodialysis (ED) and bipolar membrane processes (EDBPM) as separation and on-site chemical production technologies for complex mixtures containing not only monovalent salts but also divalent ions, nutrients, and charged organic molecules. One-side coated ion exchange membranes provide a promising platform in ED and EDBPM processes to tune ion transport, as strong diode behavior of these asymmetric membranes was recently demonstrated. Our goal is to fractionate complex salt mixtures to produce valuable chemicals. Your goal is to develop a toolbox of chemically and mechanically stable membrane coatings suitable for water treatment applications in ED and EDBPM. You will evaluate the performance on complex water streams and identify process limitations by combining experimental results with advanced model development. The project is co-supervised by Jouke Dykstra from Wageningen University and Research.

The project is part of the research con...