Intern in “testing new reactors for electrochemical precipitation”

Type of project: Internship.

Duration: 4+ months, starting from October 2026.

Location: Wetsus, European centre of excellence for sustainable water technology, Leeuwarden.

The maximum Wetsus allowance for this internship is 425 € per month. Grant holding students (i.e. Erasmus or other) receiving financial support of less than 425 € per month can apply for a top-up supplement to the maximum allowance.

Background:
Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient mainly extracted from phosphate rock. Unfortunately, phosphate rock is a finite and non-renewable resource.

Furthermore, the European Union (EU) does not have easily accessible and significant P reserves. For this reason, phosphate rock was declared a critical raw material in 2014.

In addition, P is also an important pollutant. It is, therefore, necessary to establish the P circular economy to address the above issues.

Project description:
This project aims to optimise electrochemical phosphate recovery, a novel technology that allows phosphate to be removed and recovered from certain types of wastewater.

This is possible thanks to the local alkaline environment created by the hydrogen evolution reaction. Although the feasibility of this technology has been demonstrated, some challenges need to be overcome before the reactor can be scaled up. This project aims to understand how different cell design can influence cell performance, recovery efficiency, and the quality of the recovered phosphate product in the context of industrial wastewater treatment.

Your task will be to operate the electrochemical cell, understand the characteristics of the deposit obtained, analyse the wastewater, measure the phosphate concentrations during the operating time and finally estimate the removal efficiency of the reactors using different operating conditions.

Requirements:

• Some knowledge of electrochemistry.
• Bachelor or Master’s student with a background in chemical engineering, chemistry, or environmental engineering/science.
• Fluent in English and good English writing skills
• EU citizen or non-EU citizen already enrolled in a Dutch university and living in the Netherlands

Benefits:

• Work in an international and lively environment
• Work in an advanced laboratory with many facilities
• Internship allowance of 425€ per month