News
New tenure tracker for ETE
Since March 2023, Gabriel Sigmund has joined ETE in a tenure track position focusing on sorption technologies to reduce contaminants in soil and water. Sigmund has a solid background in soil and water remediation and will now focus on the mobility of toxic substances.
‘One of my main interests is the behavior of so-called Persistent Mobile and Toxic substances, PMTs. Their mobility and persistence determine their fate in the environment as well as in engineered systems such as (waste)water treatment plants’, Sigmund explains. ‘I mainly focus on PMTs like pharmaceuticals, pesticides and also PFAS.’ Many of these compounds are highly mobile, and don’t stick easily to stuff. Often, they can form negatively charged ions, which are repelled by many surfaces, including negatively charged soil minerals and organic matter. Sigmund: ‘This results in a complex environmental behavior and generally a higher mobility.’ Consequently, traditional removal methods like adsorption to activated carbon or sand filtration, can fall short. Therefore, new removal methods in (waste)water treatment are crucial to avoid that these compounds enter the environment.
Complex behavior
One of the focal points of Sigmund’s research is to develop key expertise on the complex behavior of mobile, ionizable contaminants and study their sorption behavior. ‘One of my research questions is how strongly these PMT compounds will bind to different materials and how mobile they are’, Sigmund explains. ‘I will also develop screening methods to assess this mobility as well as the persistence of PMTs. My research also has a technological component, where I develop sorbents specifically designed to remove PMTs from a range of polluted waters.’
Great environmental costs
Currently, activated carbon is one the most widely used substances in water purification technologies. Generally, this material originates from coal or coconut shells. The sourcing and transportation of these materials has great environmental costs. Therefore, Sigmund aims to develop more sustainable carbon-based absorption materials, for example from the wood or cork fraction in waste streams. Sigmund: ‘Using such alternative materials is an important step towards reducing the environmental footprint of water purification technologies.’