Despite a long research history, we do not fully understand why plants are able to transport sap under negative pressure without constant interruption by microbubbles. The hydraulic transport system of plants is composed of macroporous conduits, which are interconnected by mesoporous cell walls in the xylem tissue. Moreover, the concentration of dissolved gas in xylem sap is traditionally...
Environmental management through the effective utilisation of biowaste has attracted significant attention in recent years. The production of biochar and its use in agriculture can play a vital role in climate change mitigation and support improve the management and quality of forestry and agricultural waste. Biochar is the carbonaceous, porous material that can be obtained from the conversion...
Through this Interpore 2022 presentation we like to acknowledge the exceptional scientific and professional contributions by Sjoerd van der Zee during his nearly 40-year career at Wageningen University. His contributions covered multiple topics in soil hydrology, geochemistry, contaminant transport, ecohydrology, water reuse, soil salinity, and stochastic modeling at a range of spatial and...
Key functions of soils, such as their contribution to the carbon cycle are significantly influenced by structures down to the microaggregate scale (< 250 µm). Although advanced imaging techniques now allow snapshots even down to the nanoscale, the mutual interdependence of the turnover of particulate organic matter and dynamic restructuring of soil aggregates is not completely understood yet....
Exudates and finer particles often coat the surface of biopores, increasing mechanical stability and altering the physico-chemical properties (e.g. wettability or sorption) of the surrounding. Consequently, the pore region of the biopore surface governs the macropore-matrix mass exchange processes during preferential flow in the soil macropores. However, the relationships between mechanical...
We built multiscale porous media resembling the architecture of water-conducting tissues in plants (xylem), using micro/nano-fabrication techniques with silicon and glass. These structures couple a nanoporous layer to arrays of microchannels of varying aspect ratio. We studied experimentally spontaneous water imbibition in these artificial systems, in a situation where imbibition is triggered...
Current predictions with respect to the global climate suggest that severe weather events will occur more often and more intense than in recent years. One example for such extreme events are heat waves, which have a significant impact on agriculture and daily life in urban areas. With evaporative cooling, plants can help to reduce the heat in big cities during such periods.
In the scope of...
The presence of arsenic in drinking water can have significant effects leading to cancer, including skin, lung and bladder carcinoma, on both chronic and acute exposure.The increased use of pesticide and fertilizer to meet agricultural needs (especially in places like Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh) has led to the release of arsenic from rocks contaminating groundwater. The quality of...
Infiltration of surface water into the subsurface through rainfall events and irrigation activities causes temporal variability in the groundwater flow and chemistry. As a result, the colloids that were previously deposited onto the grain surfaces get remobilized thereby causing recontamination of groundwater. Understanding colloid remobilization during perturbations in flow and chemistry is...
Soil salinization refers to the excessive accumulation of soluble salts in soil to a degree that adversely influences environmental, human, and animal health. Soil salinization poses an existential threat to ecosystem functioning, socioeconomic structure, and food security. The projected climate change will influence almost all key factors driving soil salinization. For example, rising...
Stable water isotopologues can be used as natural tracers to better understand evaporation and mixing processes within soils. Due to their physical characteristics, the isotopic species tend to fractionate from ordinary water during evaporation processes resulting in an enrichment of stable water isotopologues in the soil. The fractionation process can be split into equilibrium fractionation...
Owed to its promising permeate flux production, direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) has been promoted as competitive substitute for conventional water purification and desalination technologies. In DCMD, a porous hydrophobic membrane is placed in partition between a hot feed and fresh cold permeate channels. Water vapor transports through the porous membrane from the feed side to the...
Carbon membranes are well-known for their excellent performance in gas separation, as well as liquid separation, particularly for water-oil emulsions and the purification of industrial corrosive solutions. Carbon membranes are mostly prepared by carbonizing at a temperature varying from 600°C to 900°C under an inert atmosphere a shaped green body made of an organic precursor. As a result, a...
Water supplies of many communities are contaminated with both naturally occurring arsenic and anthropogenic toxic chemicals. Globally, 200 million people are exposed to toxic levels of naturally occurring arsenic in the groundwater used for drinking (Podgorski and Berg 2020). Chronic exposure to arsenic causes various types of internal cancers, cardiovascular diseases and low I.Q in children...
The Fenton reaction is studied and applied for a long-time by global researchers worldwide. However, the investigation of Fenton reaction in porous media to remove pollutants is the least attempted due to the associated complexity. This study attempted applying the Fenton reaction in detoxifying the contaminated-groundwater. The hypothesis behind this study is utilizing the advanced oxidation...
