Advanced Interfaces & Materials

Overview Research Interests & Current Team

Our main current research interest is on the tuning of chemical selectivity of membranes, electrodes and sensor platforms. Interfaces and materials play an important role in our work. Over the last year we estahlsied two different research lines, organized along the lines of the two different types of analytes we address: ions and molecules.

Ion Selectivity

Within this research line the focus is on membranes and electrodes. Both are mainly utilized in e-driven separations, but we also study other means of sorption. We are particulary interested ion separations that involve ions that have a certain value, e.g. the nutrients potassium (vs. sodium) and nitrate or phosphate (vs. chloride), or lithium (vs. various other metal ions) within the context of battery recycling, partly together with research institutes Wetsus and IMDEA Energy. We strive for selectivity and also work on the development of ion-selecitive sensor with research institute OnePlanet.

Molecular Selectivity

We design, prepare and characterize crystalline, coordination materials with nano-sized porous and study their interaction with molecules. Currently we work on metal-organic framwers (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and Prussian Blue Analogues (PBAs).

Current PhD projects:

Gas sensing - Chunyu Huang, MSc (at TU Delft, with Prof Van der Veen)

Gas sensing - Thijmen van Voorthuizen, MSc (with TU Delft)

Ion-selective electrodes - Júlia Mestres Martinez (with OnePlanet)

Gas sensing - Stijn Paulusma, MSc

Biobased polymers - Julian Engelhardt, MSc (with PCC and WFBR)

Anion-selective membranes, Daniele Chinello, MSc (with Wetsus)

Anion-selective materials - Jayaruwan (Jay) Gamaethiralalage, MSc

Functional porous polymers - Ellen Dautzenberg, MSc

Guest PhD student:

Capacitive Deionization - Yi-Heng (Thomas) Tu, MSc (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan)

Undergraduates:

Auke Winkeler (BSc student WUR), with Stijn Paulusma

Idoia Urteaga Contin (Universities of Cantabria and the Basque Country), with Daniele Chinello (at Wetsus)

Hanneke Spijkerboer (WUR), intern at Wetsus with Ha Nguyen

Overview of former group members