Drinking Water Chemistry

Head	Prof. Dr. Urs von Gunten
Staff	Dr. Silvio Canonica
	Hansueli Laubscher
	Elisabeth Salhi
Postdocs	Dr. Paul Borer
	Dr. Amisha Shaw
	Dr. Hana Mestankova
	Dr. Kangmin Chon
	Dr. Yael Schindler
Ph.D. students	Sabrina Bahnmüller
	Matthias Rudolf von Rohr
	Fabian Soltermann
	Frank Leresche
Group EPFL
Competence Centre for Drinking Water

Research activities

Recent and ongoing research has been conducted in the areas of oxidation and disinfection processes and photochemical transformations.

Oxidation and disinfection processes

Kinetics investigations, concept development for the characterization of oxidation and disinfection processes, transfer of molecular knowledge to large scale plants:

• coupling of online ozone monitoring with reactor modeling
  
• kinetics and mechanisms of formation of ozonation and chlorination by-products 
  
• kinetics of disinfection processes (inactivation of B. subtilis spores by ozone)
• formation and yield of OH radicals in the initial phase of ozonation processes
  
• oxidation of chemical contaminants (pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupting compounds, cyanotoxins)
• fractionation of iron isotopes in ground water
  

Photochemical transformation processes:

Quantum yields, kinetics and mechanisms of photochemical reactions that lead to the degradation of chemical contaminants:

• direct photodegradation of Fe(III)-EDTA, fluorescent whitening agents, and triclosan; modeling of the degradation kinetics in surface waters
  
• photosensitized degradation of phenols and phenylurea herbicides: the role of dissolved natural organic matter (DOM)
• photochemical formation and kinetics of carbonate radical; application to water treatment