goodwater

Environmental and Process Technology

Capacities: As an autonomous public and customer-oriented research organization (shares 100 % owned by Flemish government), VITO provides innovative technological solutions as well as scientifically based advice and support in order to stimulate sustainable development and reinforce the economic and social fabric of Flanders. VITO was established in 1991 based upon the non-nUCLOUVAINear research activities of the SCK (Belgian NUCLOUVAINear Research Centre).
About 500 people are working in several centres of expertise: In the Environmental and Process Technology Research Domain, VITO develops and valorises new industrial technologies for water treatment and decontaminating polluted soils and sludge. Furthermore, companies are provided with objective consultancy in the introduction of environmentally friendly production and management techniques and for solving environmental problems. The research activities are concentrated on water and soil. The research domain consists of seven project groups and has excellent analysis and test facilities which include e.g. membrane bioreactors, decontamination methods like soil air extraction, bio-venting. The fellow will work at the Environmental and Process Technology Centre (MPT) of VITO, but will also have the great opportunity to use all other facilities of VITO and thus improve his/her research skills on the highest level. In the field of environmental technologies, VITO has significant experience in the coordination of projects of the European Commission, e.g. BRITE-EURAM, LIFE, CELL FACTORY, ENVIRONMENT, and AVICENNE.

Scientific staff at VITO (MPT) involved in training

Winnie Dejonghe is a bioengineer and obtained her PhD in the laboratory of Professor Verstraete in Gent (Belgium) in 2003 on biodegradation of the herbicide linuron. For the past 5 years, Winnie has been a project manager at VITO where she was responsible for the EU project SEDBARCAH and several feasibility tests. Her field of expertise is remediation of contaminated soils, aquifers and sediments through natural attenuation (aerobic and anaerobic removal of BTEX, CAH, heavy metals, pesticides) and microbial community structure studies (molecular techniques like RT-PCR, DGGE). Leen Bastiaens is project manager at VITO. She is active in soil and groundwater remediation for more than 10 years. Research topics addressed comprise isolation of catabolic bacteria, bioremediation (PAHs, BTEX, oil, MTBE, VOCLs, and metals), monitoring of microbial population, and permeable reactive barriers (biobarriers, sorption barriers, zero-valent iron barriers) at lab-scale and in the field. EU-projects she worked on are BIOSTIMUL, MULTIBARRIER, and PROMOTE. Karolien Vanbroekhoven is also researcher and project manager within the same group, specialized on the development of technologies for the removal of heavy metals from groundwater and contaminated soils by in situ bioprecipitation processes (ISBP). Ludo Diels is senior scientist and head of the MPT at VITO. He is specialized in microbiology, biotechnology and molecular biology. He has more than 20 years experience in environmental biotechnology and is an expert in the development of technologies for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater and contaminated soils. He has five patents in this field and is author of many scientific papers and book chapters. The foreseen extent of involvement in percent of the full time employment of the VITO researchers in the ITN is 11 MM spread over the 4 years.