Groundwater & sludge
Groundwater treatment & sludge upcycling
Connect arsenic removal from drinking water with the recovery of arsenic and phosphorus from treatment residuals.
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Contaminant geochemistry · Environmental engineering
From contaminant to commodity
Many environmental pollutants are also valuable raw materials. We investigate the chemical reactions that control their behavior and develop methods to recover them from contaminated water, soils, and wastes.
About the lab →Research areas
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Mining pollution
Arsenic-rich mining & processing wastes
Investigate arsenic-bearing mining and processing wastes and develop pathways toward recovered materials.
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Soil contamination
Contaminated soils & remediation
Understand how soil chemistry controls contaminant retention, mobility, and the potential for extraction and recovery.
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Incinerator ash
Element behavior & ash valorization
Link antimony and phosphorus speciation with leaching behavior and opportunities for recovery from ash.
Explore this research →Contaminant speciation and reaction mechanisms
We use X-ray absorption spectroscopy to identify oxidation states and local bonding environments, and X-ray imaging to map element distributions. These measurements help explain why contaminants remain bound to solids, dissolve, or transform during treatment.
Highlights from the lab
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Arsenic recovery from groundwater sludge in Science Advances
The study examines a two-stage process for extracting arsenic from treatment sludge and recovering it as elemental arsenic.
Tinatin receives the DanScatt Best Poster Award
Her poster presented work on phosphate recovery from arsenic-bearing groundwater treatment sludge.
PURE Lab to coordinate Contaminant to Commodity
The Water4All project brings together GEUS, Eawag, Wageningen University & Research, and MAX IV.
Our group
The PURE Lab team
PURE Lab is led by Case van Genuchten, Senior Researcher at GEUS and Laboratory Affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Our projects bring together collaborators in Denmark, elsewhere in Europe, and the United States.
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