Publications related to Superior visible light-mediated catalytic activity of a novel N-doped, Fe3O4-incorporating MgO nanosheet in presence of PMS: Imidacloprid degradation and implications on simultaneous bacterial inactivation

Photogeneration of Hydrogen: Insights from a Pt(II)-Complex Incorporated into a Covalent Organic Framework

Pt(II)-based molecular catalysts stand as a prototypical system in hydrogen evolution reactions (HER) owing to their consistently elevated activity levels. Their integration into heterogeneous systems thus provides an ideal platform to develop catalytic ma ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag2024

Oxidation processes and me

Urs von Gunten

This publication summarizes my journey in the field of chemical oxidation processes for water treatment over the last 30+ years. Initially, the efficiency of the application of chemical oxidants for micropollutant abatement was assessed by the abatement of ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Revealing the Structure of Tryptophan in Microhydrated Complexes by Cold Ion Spectroscopy

Natalia Nagornova, Oleg Boyarkine, Andrei Zviagin, Ruslan Yamaletdinov, Manuel Dömer

The geometry of biomolecules isolated in the gas phaseusuallydiffers substantially from their native structures in aqueous solution,which are the only ones truly relevant to life science. To connectthe high resolution of cold ion spectroscopy that can be a ...

2023

Bacterial inactivation in sunlit surface waters is dominated by reactive species that emanate from the synergy between light, iron, and natural organic matter

César Pulgarin, Stefanos Giannakis, Jun Ma, Da Wang, Shuang Song

In this study, the synergistic and antagonistic effects of Fe species and coexisting natural organic matter (NOM) on the efficacy of solar light disinfection of water are investigated. Different initial iron species (Fe2+/Fe3+) and naturalorganic matter ty ...

Elsevier2023

Sunshine and a pinch of tropical soils: A natural, low-cost photo-Fenton variation for safer water, assisted by H2O2 or percabonate

César Pulgarin, Michaël Bensimon, Stefanos Giannakis, Thomas Guillaume, Jérémie Decker

Clean water is essential for human survival, but access to safe drinking water remains a challenge in resource -limited regions. Herein, we explored a low-cost but effective solution for water potabilization using natural iron sources from soils along with ...

ELSEVIER2023

Creating the conditions for Western European petroculture: The Marshall Plan, the politics of the OEEC, and the transition from coal to oil

Nicolas Christophe Chachereau

In the postwar years, petroleum products pervaded more and more aspects of Western European life. In this article, we study the origins of this pervasive petroculture through the lens of the Marshall Plan/European Recovery Program (ERP), its Refinery Expan ...

2023

Why five decades of massive research on heterogeneous photocatalysis, especially on TiO2, has not yet driven to water disinfection and detoxification applications? Critical review of drawbacks and challenges

César Pulgarin, Julian Andrés Rengifo Herrera

For fifty years, heterogeneous photocatalysis has been considered as having potential to remove organic and microbiological pollutants from water under either artificial UV light or sunlight irradiation. However, after tens of thousands of published resear ...

Elsevier Science Sa2023

Untangling the influence of Antarctic and Southern Ocean life on clouds

Julia Schmale, Hélène Paule Angot, Jenny Thomas, Markus Frey

Polar environments are among the fastest changing regions on the planet. It is a crucial time to make significant improvements in our understanding of how ocean and ice biogeochemical processes are linked with the atmosphere. This is especially true over A ...

2023

Oxidative Water Treatment: The Track Ahead

Urs von Gunten, Yun Ho Lee

Chemical oxidation has been applied in municipal water treatment for more than a century, initially for disinfection. In the early decades, chlorine disinfection was adopted in the fight against waterborne disease. However, the oxidative properties of chlo ...

2023

Mechanistic insights on interactions of dissolved organic matter with chemical oxidants: quantification of reactive sites and identification of oxidation byproducts

Joanna Maria Houska

Chemical oxidants including ozone (O3), chlorine (HOCl/OCl-) and chlorine dioxide (ClO2) are applied for disinfection of drinking water. To cope with water scarcity and the increased risks associated with the presence of micropollutants, water treatment sy ...

EPFL2023