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Person

Urs von Gunten

URS VON GUNTEN

born in Baden (Switzerland) on 20/10/1959

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Drinking water quality and water treatment. Unit processes and process combinations (adsorption processes, membrane processes, oxidation processes). Chemical oxidation and advanced oxidation processes: kinetics and mechanisms of formation of disinfection by-products and degradation of micropollutants. Assessment of toxicology of of transformation products. Biogeochemical processes in riverbank filtration systems. In situ and out-of-ground treatment of groundwaters

EDUCATION

Diploma Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Department of Chemistry,Switzerland, 1983

Ph.D.Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland, 1989.

AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS

2018 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher

2015 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher

2015 Recipient of the Harvey Rosen Award 2015 of the International Ozone Association

2015 Professorship under the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative for Distinguished Scientists

2014 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher

2013 Distinguished Lecturer for AEESP at the American Water Works Association Annual Conference, Denver, June 10, 2013

2012-to date Adjunct Professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

2011 Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL)

2010 Adjunct Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic

Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences

2010 Adjunct Professor at the Curtin University of Technology, Perth,

Australia

2007 Honorary Professorship at the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,

China

2007 Recipient of the Harvey Rosen Award 2007 of the International Ozone

Association

2007 Environmental Science and Technology Excellence in Review Award

2006 Professor title at ETHZ, Department of Environmental Sciences

2001 Recipient of the Harvey Rosen Award 2001 of the International Ozone

Association

1999 Recipient of the Marteen Schalekamp Award 1999 of the IWSA

1993 Recipient of a short-term fellowship of the Swiss National Science

Foundation in 1993 and 1994

1993 EERO short-term fellowship-holder

PROFESSIONAL RECORD

2013-2016 Head of transdisciplinary project “Regional Water Supply Basel Country 21”, Eawag

2010-2017 Head of Competence Center for Drinking Water, Eawag

2008/2009 Visiting Professor at the Curtin Water Quality Research Centre,

Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia

2004-to date Deputy head of department Water Resources and Drinking Water,

Eawag

2004-2008 Head of the cross-cutting project Drinking water for the 21st

century, Eawag

2000 2004 Head of department Water Resources and Drinking Water, Eawag

2000/2001 Sabbatical at University of Colorado, Boulder

1998 - 1999 Head of department of Chemistry, Eawag

1995 - 2011 Lecturer at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich,

Switzerland.

1995- to date Group leader of the drinking water group of the chemistry

department at Eawag

1994/93 Visiting Scientist at the International Research Center for

Water and Environment of Lyonnaise des Eaux (8 months),

CIRSEE, Le Pecq, France

since 1992 Research Scientist at Eawag

1989 - 1991 Postdoctoral Researcher at Eawag

1984 - 1989 Research Assistant, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,

Zürich

EDITORIAL ACTIVITIES

Associate Editor Environmental Science and Technology (2010/2011)

Guest Editor Water Research for special issue on Emerging

Contaminants (2010)

Guest Editor Journal of water supply: Research and

Technology-Aqua for a special issue on Oxidation Processes (2008)

Member of the editorial board of the journal Ozone: Science and Engineering.

Member of the editorial board of Journal of water supply: Research and Technology-Aqua.

FORMER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

2016 Co-organizer of PEAK seminar ”Neue Herausforderungen und Lösungsansätze in der Wasserversorgung – Fallbeispiele aus dem Kanton BL”. Dübendorf, November 11, 2016

2015 Organizer of PEAK seminar “Micropollutants in drinking water”, Dübendorf, October 30

2014 Co-organizer of the Eawag Infotag “Wasserversorgung und Uferfiltration – ein System unter Druck?” Dübendorf, September 9, 2014

2014 Co-organizer of a Symposium “Advanced oxidation processes for water treatment” 5th EuCheMS Chemistry Congress 2014, Aug. 31 – Sept. 4, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014

2013 Co-Organizer of PEAK seminar on “Oxidation and Disinfection Processes”, Aug. 30, Dübendorf

2013 Co-Organizer of the Micropoll & Ecohazard Conference, Zürich, June 17-19, 2013

2013 Co-Organizer of the session “Advanced Oxidation – Technologies and Applications, Leading Edge Technology (LET) Conference, Bordeaux, June 2-6, 2013

2011 Co-Organizer of Korean-Swiss Science Days in Zürich “Water for the Future”, ETHZ, November 9-10, 2011.

2010 Co-Organizer of an international symposium “Oxidation processes in natural and technical aquatic systems” in honour of Jürg Hoigné’s 80 birthday, Eawag, May 21, 2010.

2010 Co-Organizer of 23. Mülheimer Wassertechnisches Seminar “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von oxidativen Prozessen in der Wasserreinhaltung”, March 11, 2010, IWW, Mülheim an der Ruhr

2008 Co-Organizer of the Eawag Infotag 2008 “Vom Gewässer ins Glas”, Sept. 12, 2008, Eawag, Dübendorf

2008 Organizing committee of Leading Edge Technology Conference (LET), Zürich, June 1-4, 2008.

2008 Co-organizer of Sino-Swiss workshop “Water Resources Management and Drinking Water Quality”, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, January, 2008

2007 Organizer of Wave21 seminar on “New insights in the field of drinking water treatment”, Dübendorf, Sept. 14, 2007.

2007 Co-organizer of a symposium entitled “Sustainability in Water Supply: Advances in Oxidation Processes for Water Treatment” at ACS Spring conference, Chicago, March 25-29, 2007.

2006 Organizer of Wave21 seminar on “New developments of analytical methods for drinking water analysis”, Dübendorf, Sept. 15, 2006,

2005 Organizer of Wave21 seminar on “New applications of ozone in water treatment”, Sept. 23, 2005, Dübendorf

1999 Co-organizer of 200th Anniversary Symposium in honor of Ch. F. Schönbein - the discoverer of ozone, October 1999, Basel.

1995 Organizer of a symposium in honor of J. Hoigné, June, 1995, Dübendorf, Switzerland

1991 Co-organizer of the workshop "Chemodynamics of Groundwaters", November, 1991, Mont Sainte-Odile, France

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This course provides students with an overview over the basics of environmental chemistry. This includes the chemistry of natural systems, as well as the fate of anthropogenic chemicals in natural systems. It enables students to apply general chemical concepts to natural systems.

ENV-405: Water and wastewater treatment

This course on water and wastewater treatment shows how to implement and design different methods and techniques to eliminate organic matter, nitrogen and phosporous from wastewater, and how to apply physical and chemical methods and techniques to produce drinking water.

Sewage treatment

Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is

Ozone

Ozone (ˈoʊzoʊn) (or trioxygen) is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula O3. It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable th

Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime d

A Survey of Industrial N-nitrosamine Discharges in Switzerland

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Caroline Gachet Aquillon, Urs von Gunten

N-nitrosamines are formed during different industrial processes and are of significant concern due to their carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. This study reports concentrations of N-nitrosamines in eight different industrial wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland and the variability of their abundance. Only four N-nitrosamines species, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), N-nitrosodibutylamine (NDPA) and N-nitrosomorpholine (NMOR) were above the limit of quantification in this campaign. Remarkably high concentrations (i.e. up to 975 μg NDMA/L, 90.7 μg NDEA/L, 1.6 μg NDPA/L and 710 μg NMOR/L) of these N-nitrosamines were detected at seven of eight sites. These concentrations are two to five orders of magnitude higher than those typically detected in municipal wastewater effluents. These results suggest that industrial effluents may be a major source of N-nitrosamines. Although very high concentrations of N-nitrosamine have been detected in industrial discharges, various processes in surface water can partially mitigate their concentrations (e.g. photolysis, biodegradation and volatilization) and hence the risk to human health and aquatic ecosystems. Nevertheless, there is little information on long-term effects on aquatic organisms and therefore the discharge of N-nitrosamines to the environment should be avoided until the impact on ecosystems is assessed. During winter a less efficient mitigation of N-nitrosamines can be expected (lower biological activity, less sunligt) and therefore, emphasis should be put on this season in future risk assessment studies.

2023

Ozonation of natural waters is typically associated with the formation of carbonyl compounds (aldehydes, ketones and ketoacids), a main class of organic disinfection byproducts (DBPs). However, the detection of carbonyl compounds in water and wastewater is challenged by multiple difficulties inherent to their physicochemical properties. A non-target screening method involving the derivatisation of carbonyl compounds with p-toluenesulfonylhydrazine (TSH) followed by their analysis using liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionisation high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-HRMS) and an advanced non-target screening and data processing workflow was developed. The workflow was applied to investigate the formation of carbonyl compounds during ozonation of different water types including lake water, aqueous solutions containing Suwannee River Fulvic acid (SRFA), and wastewater. A higher sensitivity for most target carbonyl compounds was achieved compared to previous derivatisation methods. Moreover, the method allowed the identification of known and unknown carbonyl compounds. 8 out of 17 target carbonyl compounds were consistently detected above limits of quantification (LOQs) in most ozonated samples. Generally, the concentrations of the 8 detected target compounds decreased in the order: formaldehyde > acetaldehyde > glyoxylic acid > pyruvic acid > glutaraldehyde > 2,3-butanedione > glyoxal > 1-acetyl-1-cyclohexene. The DOC concentration-normalised formation of carbonyl compounds during ozonation was higher in wastewater and SRFA-containing water than in lake water. The specific ozone doses and the type of the dissolved organic matter (DOM) played a predominant role for the extent of formation of carbonyl compounds. Five formation trends were distinguished for different carbonyl compounds. Some compounds were produced continuously upon ozonation even at high ozone doses, while others reached a maximum concentration at a certain ozone dose above which they decreased. Concentrations of target and peak areas of non-target carbonyl compounds during full-scale ozonation at a wastewater treatment plant showed an increase as a function of the specific ozone dose (sum of 8 target compounds similar to 280 mu g/L at 1 mgO(3)/mgC), followed by a significant decrease after biological sand filtration (> 64-94% abatement for the different compounds). This highlights the biodegradability of target and non-target carbonyl compounds and the importance of biological post-treatment.

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Hydrogen Peroxide Formation during Ozonation of Olefins and Phenol: Mechanistic Insights from Oxygen Isotope Signatures

Joanna Maria Houska, Urs von Gunten

Mitigation of undesired byproducts from ozonation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) such as aldehydes and ketones is currently hampered by limited knowledge of their precursors and formation pathways. Here, the stable oxygen isotope composition of H2O2 formed simultaneously with these byproducts was studied to determine if it can reveal this missing information. A newly developed procedure, which quantitatively transforms H2O2 to O2 for subsequent 18O/16O ratio analysis, was used to determine the 618O of H2O2 generated from ozonated model compounds (olefins and phenol, pH 3-8). A constant enrichment of 18O in H2O2 with a 618O value of similar to 59%o implies that 16O-16O bonds are cleaved preferentially in the intermediate Criegee ozonide, which is commonly formed from olefins. H2O2 from the ozonation of acrylic acid and phenol at pH 7 resulted in lower 18O enrichment (618O = 47-49%o). For acrylic acid, enhancement of one of the two pathways followed by a carbonyl-H2O2 equilibrium was responsible for the smaller 618O of H2O2. During phenol ozonation at pH 7, various competing reactions leading to H2O2 via an intermediate ozone adduct are hypothesized to cause lower 618O in H2O2. These insights provide a first step toward supporting pH -dependent H2O2 precursor elucidation in DOM.

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023