Excite Network and Wetsus Workshop
X-ray Imaging for Sustainable Water Research
13:30-17:00, Wetsus Atrium. The online registration is now closed. Please register on-site if you still wish to attend.
The Excite (Electron and X-ray microscopy Community for structural and chemical Imaging Techniques for Earth materials) is the leading European electron and X-ray imaging infrastructure network. The network consists of 24 facilities located at 15 research institute across 9 European countries. The network is also expanding and would like to extend their research topics from geology into climate change and sustainability. It provides free-of-charge access to their facilities to Wetsus researchers and other partners. The facilities includes FeSEM, TEM, MicroCT, NanoSIMs etc. The workshop will look at the different ways in which microscopy can be applied to environmental samples and the procedures required to access the facility. There will be presentations by researchers from Ghent University, Wetsus and our university partners who have applied these advanced techniques in their water and environmental related research.
Prof. V. Cnudde is a geologist and full professor at Ghent University, Belgium, where she is the Research Director of the Faculty of Sciences. She holds the chair “Porous media imaging Techniques” at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She is a geologist and leads the PProGRess team at the UGent Geology department and is one of the coordinators of the Ghent University Core facility “Centre for X-ray tomography” (UGCT) which units an interdisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in X-ray CT imaging. Since 2012 she is member of the Proposal Review Committee (PRC) of the Swiss Synchrotron (SLS-PSI) (Switzerland) at the CSAXS (Coherent small angle X-ray scattering) and TOMCAT (A beamline for TOmographic Microscopy and Coherent rAdiology experimenTs ) beamlines.
Since 2018, she is the chair of TOMCAT’s PRC. She is currently active in the EU-ETN SUBLime on “Sustainable Building Lime Applications via Circular Economy and Biomimetic Approaches” (2021-2025) as one of the supervisors. At Utrecht, she secured in 2021 the prestigious personal 1.5 M€ VICI grant from NWO on the use of X-ray CT to study the bio-protection of stone using bacteria and in 2023 she obtained, together with her Dutch colleagues 18 M€ to set up the large-scale research infrastructure, “EPOS-eNLarge: Bridging scales and borders for sustainability in Earth sciences”. She currently coordinates the European INFRAIA (H202 European Research infrastructure: “Integrating and opening European Research infrastructures”) project “EXCITE: Electron and X-ray microscopy Community for structural and chemical Imaging Techniques for Earth materials” (5M€, 2021-2024), which joins 15 different European top facilities at 9 different countries to contribute to science. This EXCITE Network has established a solid foundation in providing transnational access (TNA), offering training and guidance to European and global researchers at various career stages. In 2023, the follow-up “EXCITE2: Enhanced X(cross)-disciplinary Community-driven Imaging Technologies for Earth and Environmental material research” (2024-2028) was approved for 14.5M€ by Horizon Europe in the call ‘Horizon-INFRA-2023-SEV-01-01: Research infrastructure services to enable R&I addressing main challenges and EU priorities). EXCITE2 units 19 partners in 12 European and associated partner countries.
13:30 – 13:40 Opening and welcome by Dr. Cristina Gagliano (Wetsus)
13:40 – 14:10 Prof. Veerle Cnudde (UGent, keynote speaker): X-ray imaging to understand pore scale processes
14:10 – 14:30 Dr. Laurenz Schröer (UGent): Visualizing biofilms within opaque materials using micro-computed tomography + EXCITE Network
14:30 – 14:40 Dr. Jafar Qajar (UU): Microfluidic investigations of interactions between microorganisms and ionic strength: Implications for salt crystallization in porous media
14:40 – 14:50 Soetkin Barbaix (UGent /UU): The dynamic fluid flow – biogeochemical reactivity relationship during underground hydrogen storage
14:50 – 15:00 Hanne De Lathauwer (UGent): Tiny, yet big impact? Towards unraveling the interactions between microplastics and natural sedimentary rocks
15:00 – 15:30 Break
15:30 – 15:50 Dr. Xiaoxia Liu (Wetsus): Using imaging techniques to understand the influence of magnetic fields on microbial calcium carbonate precipitation in drinking water
15:50 – 16:10 Dr. ir. Annemerel R. Mol (WUR): Sulfur crystal growth control in pilot scale biological gas desulfurization
16:10 – 16:30 Dr. Barbara Vital (SusPhos): Using microscopy to determine the level of pre-treatment of fresh and sea water required to manage fouling in reverse electrodialysis
16: 30 – 16:50 Dr. Carlo Belloni (Wetsus): Investigating the effects of iron (hydr)oxide nanoparticles manipulations on speciation, size, habit, and crystallinity
16:50 – 18:00 Networking drinks
The online registration is now closed. Please register on-site if you still wish to attend.