Karolina Maduna is our researcher from outgoing scheme. She did two years of her NEWFELPRO project implementation at the Abo Akademi – Department of Chemical Engineering, Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry and Reaction Engineering. Untill the end of July she is completing her work at the project at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology-Department of Reaction Engineering and Catalysis at the University of Zagreb.

Her NEWFELPRO project is called Preparation and Characterization of Zeolite Based Catalysts for Phenolic Wastewater Treatment (ZCat4Water). The main activity in the project is a preparation of a stabile catalyst that can more effectively eliminate toxic phenolic substances from industrial effluents by catalytic wet peroxidation process under mild reaction conditions (atmospheric pressure and T<353 K) would have a positive effect to the intensification of the research in connection to this environmental issue, on both local and international level. The physical, chemical and experimental methods that are to be used in obtaining this primary goal in practice include conventional as well as state-of the art techniques of catalyst preparation, modification and characterization. Special interest of the proposed research is oriented towards the production of the efficient catalyst that has optimal activity to stability performance, meaning that besides from showing good activity in the process it should also possess satisfactory mechanical, thermal and chemical stability what always was and still remains a challenge in the specific research field. Other activities include education and training of the applicant in general and specific fields that will support the development of her professional, social and economic skills, improving applicant’s scientific potential for future work in Croatian academic institutions or industry, increasing access to knowledge by sharing research results and improving knowledge transfer between two labs, removing the institutional and national barriers hampering free movement of researchers and publication of joint research papers.

Future work of Karolina Maduna will be oriented towards further development of inovative catalytic systems for the non selective oxidation of wastewater contaminated with harmfull organic pollutants with the accent on reactor design on mili and microscale combining state of the art techniques such as 3D printing of polymer encased catalytic fixed bed reactors as well as synthesizing structered zeolite based catalysts for further environmental applications.

• Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Kaselj, Ivona; Smolković, Josipa; Zrnčević, Stanka; Kumar, Narendra; Murzin, Dmitry Yu.: „Catalytic Wet Peroxide Oxidation of Olive Oil Mill Wastewater over Zeolite Based Catalyst“, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS. 43 (2015) ; 853-858
• Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Zrnčević, Stanka; Kumar, Narendra; Murzin, Dmitry Yu.: „Catalytic screening of transition metal zeolite based catalysts in cwpo of model and real phenolic wastewater“, BOOK OF PROCEEDINGS SEM 2016, Zvonimir Katančić ; Natalija Koprivanac ; Ana Lončarić Božić ; Hrvoje Kušić ; Zlata Hrnjak-Murgić (Eds) Zagreb : University of Zagreb, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology , 2016. 74-79
• Karolina Maduna Valkaj: Catalytic screening of Cu-MCM-22 and Cu-MCM-36 catalysts in peroxidation of 4-(2- Hydroxyethyl)phenol; Finnish Young Scientist Forum for Catalysis, Tampere, Finland, April 8, 2016 (oral presentation)
• Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Kumar, Narendra; Roine, Jorma; Peurla, Markus; Murzin, Dmitry: „Catalytic peroxidation of tyrosol using copper containig MCM-22 and MCM-36 zeolite catalysts“, Proceeding of the 17th Nordic Symposium on Catalysis: Book of Abstracts, Media-Tryck, Lund University (Eds.), Lund: Media-Tryck, Lund University, 2016. 138-138 (oral presentation)
• Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Kumar, Narendra; Eränen, Kari; Murzin, Dmitry Yu.: „Catalytic wet peroxide oxidation of tyrosol over transition metal bearing beta zeolite catalysts: influence of metal cation species and acidity“, Proceedings of 11th International Symposium on Heterogeneous Catalysis: Book of Abstracts, Institute of Catalysis, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2015
• Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Tomašić, Vesna; Narendra, Kumar; Zrnčević, Stanka; Murzin, Dmitry.: „Catalytic Oxidtation Of Polyphenols Over Cu-MCM-22 AND Cu-MCM-36 Zeolite Catalysts“, 24. hrvatski skup kemičara i kemijskih inženjera (Book of Abstracts); Ukić, Šime ; Bolanča, Tomislav (Eds), Zagreb : HDKI/CSCE, 2015. 205
• A. Torozova, P. Mäki-Arvela, N. D. Shcherban, N. Kumar, A. Aho, M. Stekrova, K. Maduna Valkaj, P. Sinitsyna, S. M. Filonenko, P. S. Yaremov, V. G. Ilyin, K. P. Volcho, N. F. Salakhutdinov, D. Yu. Murzin: „Effect of acidity and texture of micro-, mesoporous, and hybrid micromesoporous materials on the synthesis of paramenthanic diol exhibiting anti-Parkinson activity“, Catalysis, Structure & Reactivity. 1 (2015) ; 146-154
• Stekrova, Martina, Päivi Mäki-Arvela, Ewelina Leino, Karolina M. Valkaj, Kari Eränen, Atte Aho, Annika Smeds et al. „Two-step synthesis of monoterpenoid dioxinols exhibiting analgesic activity from isopulegol and benzaldehyde over heterogeneous catalysts“ Catalysis Today 279 (2017): 56-62.
• Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Tomašić, Vesna; Katović, Andrea; Bielanska, Elzbieta: „Synthesis and characterization of Cu-MFI catalyst for the direct medium temperature range NO decomposition“ Materials science-Poland. 34 (2016) , 1; 177-184
• Babić, Kristina; Duplančić, Marina; Maduna Valkaj, Karolina; Tomašić, Vesna: „Razvoj Metalnog Monolitnog Katalizatora/Reaktora Za Oksidaciju Toluena“, 24. hrvatski skup kemičara i kemijskih inženjera (Book of Abstracts); Ukić, Šime ; Bolanča, Tomislav (Eds), Zagreb : HDKI/CSCE, 2015. 206

Workshops and Seminars participation:

• RSC Finnish Section and Åbo Akademi University XPS Workshop Rosala, Finland 2015
• PCC Anders Ringbom Workshop in Flow chemistry, Microanalysis and Microtechnology Turku, Finland 2014
• Åbo Akademi University Buonapart-E Workshop on life cycle eveluation and energy use for different production processes of nanomaterials, Turku, Finland 2015
• Turku University Centre for Materials and Surfaces: 8th Annual MATSURF Seminar: Materials in Action, Turku, Finland 2014
• University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, CBT and PCC joint Workshop, Turku, Finland 2015
• Åbo Akademi University POKE symposium, Turku, Finland 2015
• Åbo Akademi Process Chemistry Centre Annual Meeting, Turku, Finland 2014
• Johan gadolin Process Chemistry Centre Åbo Akademi University PCC Mini-seminar on mass spectrometry, Turku, Finland 2015
• Åbo Akademi University POKE Researchers network: Summer school in Saarema, Saarema, Estonia 2014