Karolina Maduna and magic that she does - project "ZCat4Water"


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.

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