Analytical Chemistry Lab - Chemical Engineering Department AUTh

The research of the scientific group of Aristotle Universiy of Thessaloniki (Manassis Mitrakas, Sofia Tresintsi, Konstantinos Simeonidis, Iosif Georgiou, Georgios Stavropoulos, Anastasios Zoumpoulis, Ioannis Tsiaoussis and Maria Katsikini), titled “ Development and industrial exploitation of a Fe-Mn adsorbent for simultaneous removal of As(III) and As(V) from potable water ” participated in the Competition for Applied Research and Innovation "Greece Innovates!" and awarded the first prize. Endeavour, creativity and success were celebrated at the festive awards ceremony of the “Greece innovates!” competition held in Athens on July 5th, 2011, sending a message of optimism about the country. The competition is a joint initiative of SEV Hellenic Federation of Enterprises and Eurobank EFG. The Scientific Council, which comprised of prominent members from the academic community, and was the reviewing body of the competition, granted awards to four out of the 21 competition entries who had qualified for the final selection phase. Two awards were granted in the field of Applied Research and two in the field of Innovation. The work refers to the development and the industrial scale production of a low-cost granular adsorbent called AquAsZero consisting of an iron-manganese oxy-hydroxide able to succesfully adsorb trivalent arsenic As(III) while presenting improved efficiency against pentavalent arsenic As(V) in potable water compared to the corresponding commercial products. The research was funded by European Union in the frame of the “AquAsZero” program (Νο 232241) of the 7th Framework for the support of small-medium enterprises coordinated by LOUFAKIS CHEMICALS S.A. Research centres of ELKEDE (Greece) and HERI (UK) as well as 3 enterprises IPROCHIM (Romania), Technicas del Aqua UREN (Spain) and Aquagest (Spain) also participated in the program. The research included the laboratory preparation and technological evaluation, the physicochemical and structural characterization and the study of adsorption properties of the material. The main part took place in the of Analytical Chemistry Laboratory of Chemical Engineering Deprtment of AUTh . For the determination of some physical and structural parameters or the mechanisms of arsenic adsorption measurments were also performed in the Applied Physics Laboratory, the Electron Microscopy Laboratory of Department of Physics and the facilities of Synchrotron Radiation BESSY in Berlin. Specific surface and pore volume measurment were carried in the Laboratory of General Chemistry Technology of Chemical Engineering Department of AUTh while surface charge and zeta potential determination were done in the Laboratory of General and Inorganic Chemical Technology in the Department of Chemistry of AUTh. The project was completed after the contribution of many academics, researchers, students and external collaborators of AUTh. From Analytical Chemistry Laboratory C. Sikalidis (Associate Professor), R. Tzimou (Associate Professor) I. Georgiou (Scientific collaborator), K. Simeonidis (Dr), S. Tresintsi (PhD student) F. Karkantelidou (PhD student) and the students P. Moshou, E. Liakakou, E. Mitraka, A. Tsikogia, K. Palios, I. Marvaki, I. Kouvatsi, from the Laboratory of General Chemistry Technology: G. Stavropoulos (Assistant Professor), from Laboratory of General and Inorganic Chemical Technology: A. Zoumpoulis (Professor) and K. Matis (Professor), from Laboratory of materials characterization by X-ray abdorption techniques: M. Katsikini (Assistant Professor) and F. Pinakidou (Dr), from Applied Physics Laboratory: G. Vourlias (Dr) and from Electron Microscopy Laboratory: I. Tsiaoussis (Dr). More information concerning the competition: http://www.kainotomeis.gr