PhD Studentship "Development of passive samplers and electroanalytical techniques for the assessmen

A PhD position is available associated to the project " Development of passive samplers and electroanalytical techniques for the assessment of speciation and availability of inorganic nutrients and contaminants in waters"

 

The summary of the project is :

An efficient management of water resources must ensure water amount and quality adequate for each use. The aim of the project is the development and optimisation of new monitoring techniques that can be useful for water quality control. These techniques will respond to the increasing requirements of environmental quality allowing, at the same time, an adequate understanding of the concepts of chemical speciation and availability of inorganic pollutants and/or nutrients.

These concepts determine the properties, distribution and circulation of these elements in the environment. The project selects a suite of novel techniques according to two main criteria:

I) their capability of being deployed in-situ, as efficient and low-cost passive samplers, and II) their capability to provide information on speciation and availability (through free concentrations and/or fluxes). The specific objectives are: 1) Development of DGT (Diffusive Gradients in Thin Films), improving its interpretation and modelling, trying new binding phases, determining key parameters and exploiting information from regimes other than stead state.

2) Development of devices based on functionalized membranes, optimizing the membrane phase to ensure an adequate stability that will allow to include them in novel systems of passive sampling and progressing in their modelling.

3) Development of AGNES (Absence of Gradients and Nernstian Equilibrium Stripping), to gain access, in very competitive times, to concentrations of well-defined species (not yet tackled) and to information on the lability of the complexes (when combined with other electroanalytical techniques).

5) Study of selected continental waters and harmonization of the information extracted by means of the different techniques within an integrated interpretative framework. 6) Study of speciation in aqueous media spiked with a type of emerging pollutant such as engineered nanomaterials, and assessment of the availability of the species released from them due to dissolution. Expected results from the project: a) progress in the understanding of the key henomena in the samplers, definition of relevant parameters, methods of measurement, proposals of new designs, new strategies of use and improvement in the interpretation of results b) improvement of the studied techniques in aspects such as: broadening of the range of accessible analytes, reduction of measurement times, control of interferences, limit of detection, etc.

c) building up of a conceptual framework for speciation and availability in waters, based on rigorous approaches of the involved phenomena and in the integration of the information provided by the different complementary techniques.

d) detailed study of a suite of continental waters for a series of selected analytes

e) advance in the knowledge of the ecotoxicological impact and environmental fate of nanoparticles in aquatic media.

Position available for 1 year. After evaluation at the end of the first year, the contract can be extended up to 2 years more

Gross salary around 15.000 € / year

The Degree studies must have been finished after 1 January 2009. Master studies finished before December 2018.

Applicants interested in this position, please send updated CV to the contact above.

Grades and qualifications of all subjects (Bachelor and Master) shall be included.

Two referees shall be mentioned in order to provide information about your profile.

The thesis will extend the application of the analytical technique DGT (Diffusion Gradients in Thin films) to special systems such as complex matrices. Possible applications: environmental and animal health studies, ecotoxicology, food analysis. The thesis will –at least partially- have an experimental focus working with the preparation of passive samplers, deployment and analysis. Modeling and numerical simulation of the systems could be also part of the thesis if the candidate is oriented towards theoretical work.