PhD Environmental Aquatic Chemistry A PhD Scholarship in Environmental Aquatic Chemistry is available at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Aqua) with starting date December 2014. The scholarship is financed by Nordic 5 Tech collaboration (DTU) and the Danish Council for Independent Research. The project will primarily be carried out at the Section for Marine Ecology and Oceanography at Aqua, which is situated in Charlottenlund, Denmark. The PhD will be part of a collaboration between two projects currently running at Aqua and Chalmers University (Dept. Civil and Environmental Engineering), Sweden. Project description Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a complex mixture of organic compounds ultimately originating from the degradation of terrestrial and aquatic plant material. About 97% of organic carbon in the world’s oceans exists in the dissolved phase and this fraction plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. DOM is also important on smaller scales, as its physical and chemical properties greatly influence aquatic ecosystems. As well as influencing natural biogeochemistry, DOM is of critical importance to the water industry since in many countries, natural surface waters are treated then used as drinking water. These waters contain DOM which influences water quality both aesthetically (giving a brown colour to the water) and chemically (producing harmful organo-chlorine compounds during chlorine purification). Increasing temperatures in northern Europe as a result of climate change are causing an increase in the amount and changes in quality of DOM released from soils to surface waters. In addition, human induced changes in land use in river catchments can have a similar if not greater effect. In order to understand the consequences for aquatic ecology and the drinking water industry, it is first necessary to characterise DOM. The chemical complexity of DOM makes it very difficult to characterise using traditional techniques. A fraction of DOM absorbs ultra violet (UV) and visible light, while a specific subset of this subsequently exhibits a natural fluorescence. These spectroscopic properties can be used as markers for the turnover of different DOM fractions. Despite over 20 years of measurements, the interpretation of these spectra remains a black box about which little is known. The overall aim of the PhD is to improve the understanding and interpretation of how the spectral properties of DOM are linked to its chemical composition. The PhD is part of a collaboration between two projects currently running at DTU and Chalmers University where the two supervisors are currently collaborating. The Swedish Strategic Research council (FORMAS) project ‘Novel fluorescence-based indicators of drinking water disinfection’ granted to Dr. Murphy, and the Danish Council for Independent Research project “Linking the optical properties of DOM to its characteristics and origins”, funded to Dr. Stedmon. Qualifications We are looking for a candidate who has: A Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in aquatic science, environmental engineering, analytical chemistry, biogeochemistry or similar Previous experience in analytical chemistry, in particular UV-visible spectroscopy and liquid chromatography Proficiency in written and spoken English Mathematical modeling skills and experience with MATLAB would be advantageous See the web link for more details. dtu.dk/Job/job?id=2032824f-776f-4bca-a916-6cea7c0e7fb9
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 14:22:50 +0000
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