PLANTED

PLANTED is ENLIGHT Thematic Networks (ETN) project. ENLIGHT stands for European university Network to promote equitable quality of Life, sustaInability and Global engagement through Higher education Transformation. ENLIGHT is a European University alliance of ten comprehensive, research-intensive universities from ten European countries.

Coordinator

ETN Members

University of Tartu (UT) is involved in PLANTED with three groups: Laboratory of Plasma Physics (LPP) from Institute of Physics and Chair of Colloidal and Environmental Chemistry (CEC), and Chair of Analytical Chemistry from Institute of Chemistry (CAC) having shared Environmental Technology curriculum teaching subjects altogether.
LPP has long-term experience in non-thermal plasma physics and chemistry by developing various dielectric barrier discharges, corona discharges and investigating their applications in air purification and water treatment for cancer therapy. LPP has developed a plasma device for water treatment working in different gas atmospheres and diagnostic methods to investigate the plasma properties and reactive plasma species in the gas and liquid phase. The members of this group are responsible for teaching in various bachelor, master, and Ph.D. courses such as Electricity and magnetism, Plasma physics and its applications.
CEC complements the network in the water treatment training and research by pre- and post- treatment of pharmaceuticals carried out by cheaper bacterial processes with anammox- denitrifying cultures. CEC leader, Dr. Zekker (among 1% top-cited scientists in environmental sciences/ecology) has 15 years of teaching experience and is supported by researchers and specialists Dr. Viirlaid, Dr. Velling, Dr. Paaver and MSc. Mürk who are at different academics’ level of seniority and bring gender balance. CEC will participate in summer school, and practical exercises on wastewater treatment, particularly on pharmaceutical removal. CEC will also perform plasma pretreated medication containing wastewater treatment in moving bed biofilm reactors and disseminate the results.
CAC, represented in this project by Dr. Hanno Evard, is an established research group prominent at several different fields of analytics e.g. acid-base studies, LC-MS, Analysis of cultural heritage objects, metrology, microfluidics, and supramolecules. Several different articles have been published involving analysis of sewage sludge and method for sample pretreatment and measurements with LC-MS/MS has been developed with CEC for simultaneous analysis of 8 antimicrobial agents. CAC has the necessary knowledge, skills and instrumentation to support this project with the analytical chemistry and is responsible for organizing several university wide courses on this topic. Moreover, CAC organizses Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, a master's study programme on analytical chemistry, and 3 MOOC’s (Measurement Uncertainty, Validation of LC-MS methods, and Analysis of Cultural Heritage Objects). CAC has 28 members and 12 PhD candidates (57% of whom are women).

Ghent University (UGent) is involved in the project through collaboration of two groups: Research Unit of Plasma Technology (RUPT) and Laboratory for Industrial Water- and Ecotechnology (LIWET).
RUPT: Building on a long tradition in discharge physics, the RUPT has developed expertise in the field of non-thermal atmospheric plasmas. RUPT designs and constructs plasma sources and engages in multidisciplinary research on plasma applications. Recently, physics and chemistry of interaction of plasmas with liquids has been placed as one of the main directions of the research. The group’s work on “liquid plasmas” has been internationally recognized and confirmed by multiple international projects and ERC starting grant, Prof. N. De Geyter. The application field of water treatment is a natural extension of RUPT work on plasma/liquid interactions. The group has a high level of complimentary expertise to all other partners in the development of new plasma sources for water treatment and plasma diagnostics.
LIWET employs a demand-driven approach focusing on integrating diverse technologies for efficient and sustainable water treatment and reuse. Laboratory and in silico experiments are performed in view of facilitating scaling to pilot and full-scale. Specifically in this project, LIWET will contribute by supporting the translation to application of plasma-based technologies for water treatment (with a focus on micropollutant removal). This contribution fits with the current research interests, which include decentralised water treatment, electrocoagulation-flocculation for industrial wastewater and AOP-based water treatment (e.g. O3 and plasma technologies). Recent application and scale-up oriented research projects involving advanced oxidation (and reduction) include PFAS removal from industrial wastewater, tertiary municipal wastewater polishing and leachate treatment. Specific projects are Interreg projects such as I-Qua, IMPROVED and O3G. LIWET has a close collaboration with different companies within the framework of LEDH2O (www.lednetwerk.be) and with Vlakwa (www.vlakwa.be). These companies will be contacted regarding the project. The theme of the proposal not only fits very well within this framework but also addresses a pressing need for more sustainable water treatment and in education of new generation of students aware about AOPs and plasma technology.

Comenius University in Bratislava (CUB) has Division of Environmental Physics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics which belongs to very few groups focused on the systematic and complex detection of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in gas plasma and plasma activated water for different plasma discharges and their parameters. Senior staffed prof. Machala’s group is a well-established multidisciplinary team with experts in plasma physics and optical diagnostics, environmental and, biomedical and also agricultural applications of plasma. The group's laboratories are fully equipped for plasma diagnostics, complex spectroscopic/electrochemical analysis of plasma treated gases and water. This research group is in close collaboration with scientists at the Faculty of Natural Sciences including Dr. Monfort’s group who is an expert on physicochemical treatments for the abatement of pollutants in aqueous systems, and Prof. Sevcovicova (senior researcher) who is an expert on the effects of environmental pollutants and other bioactive compounds on various organisms. The team members are involved in the teaching process of bachelor, master, and Ph.D. courses focused on environmental physics, especially water resources and pollution control, inorganic chemistry and materials for environmental applications, biology and genetics, etc.

Other Stakeholders

Tartu region

Ghent region

Bratislava region