Prof. dr. ir. Korneel Rabaey
Education
- PhD in Applied Biological Sciences, Ghent University 2005
- Bio-Engineer spec. Environmental Technology, Ghent University 2001
Professional & Research Activities
Korneel Rabaey (20/11/1977) is professor at the Department of Biotechnology at Ghent University as well as honorary professor at The University of Queensland. He is one of the founders and the present Chief Technology Oofficer of CAPTURE (www.capture-resources.be ), a centre focusing on resource recovery in the fields of Water, Carbon Capture and Utilization and Plastics to Resource. He is founder of HYDROHM (www.hydrohm.com ), a company focusing on electrification in the water sector. His main research efforts are on resource recovery from wastewater, decentralized treatments, industrial liquid sidestreams and CO2 streams from industry. Typically a combination of electrochemical and/or microbial approaches is used to achieve formation of added value products. He is the author or co-author of over 200 refereed articles attracting over 34000 citations, listing him as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher. He is Fellow of the International Water Association and was laureate of the Royal Academy (Belgium) in 2016. He is executive editor in chief of Environmental Science & Ecotechnology, as well as Editorial Advisory Board member for Environmental Science & Technology.
Principles behind our research
- The advent of activated sludge in the early 20th century undoubtedly saved millions of lives. Whereas it is A solution, it is clear that we rely on recovery of the water, carbon, energy and nutrients to achieve a circular society.
- We need to move away from the waste stamp and consider fully our resources in an opportunistic way:
- Salts in wastewater are not to be put at high energy cost in a brine for discharge. We need to convert them to useful salts such as NaOH, phosphoric acid, NaHS and whatever we know the market asks for
- Organic side streams should become a basis for the production of chemicals in demand. Examples are the production of microbial protein for feed and food, caproic acid as antibiotics replacement and the production of esters from short chain fatty acids.
- CO2 coming from industrial sites should be considered as a major opportunity for large scale production of organic chemicals. A western European society has, beyond agriculture at its summum, not much more than CO2 and light to make a living
- Interdisciplinary thinking is essential to progress technology
- All focus has been on the water – energy nexus whereas the chemistry – water nexus is probably far more problematic
