SHORT SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC LIFE

Albert Guisasola i Canudas (Mataró, 1978) is a chemical engineer (UAB, 2001) and PhD in Environmental Technology with the thesis entitled “Modelling biological organic matter and nutrient removal from wastewater using respirometric and titrimetric techniques” awarded with Cum Laude, European Mention and UAB Honors. The topic of his research was to gain understanding on the biological nutrient removal processes via an engineering approach based on experimental assays, on-line monitoring through respirometry and titrimery and modelling. He was visiting during half year the lab BIOMATH (Gent Universiteit, Belgium) during this period to understand the estimation of confidence intervals on parameter estimates in non-linear models under the supervision of Prof. Peter Vanrolleghem. After his PhD thesis, he moved to the AWMC research group (University of Queensland, Australia) on a postdoctoral contract with Dr. Zhiguo Yuan. He studied the biological process occurring in pressurized sewer systems and described, for the first time, methane production in these systems as well as its mechanisms. Then, he moved for short time to LEQUIA research group (Universitat of Girona) to work on granular biomass.

In 2007, he moved back to GENOCOV (UAB) with a tenure position to continue with the research on biological nutrient removal processes from wastewater. Together with Dr. Juan Baeza, he started, in 2009, a new research line on Biolectrochemical systems for the valorization of wastewaters, being PI in the obtained projects. 

CURRENT PROJECTS INVOLVED 

RECYCLES: Recovering carbon from contaminated matrices by exploiting the nitrogen and sulphur cycles”

H2020-872053-CT-FOOT-CS  (https://recycles-h2020.eu/ )

PI: David Gabriel (UAB)

NIMBUS: Non-IMpact BUS: Demonstration of a biological methanation plant for sustainable urban transport,

LIFE19 ENV/ES/000191 (https://www.life-nimbus.eu/ )

PI: CETAQUA, Investigador principal (UAB): Albert Guisasola

VIVALDI: innoVative bIo-based chains for CO2 VALorisation as aDded-value organIc acids

H2020-101000441-FNR13 (https://www.vivaldi-h2020.eu/ )

PI: Albert Guisasola

FOSPHORUS: fomentando la recuperación de fosforo en estaciones depuradoras de aguas residuales en diferentes escenarios operativos

PI: Albert Guisasola

BINAFET: Building Integrated Agriculture for an effective ecological transition: Local resources use

TED2021-130047B-C21.

PI: Xavier Gabarrell

Albert’s current research interests are:

• Design, building and operation of novel configurations for an efficient biological nutrient (i.e. organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus) removal processes for urban/industrial wastewaters in view of decreasing energy requirements and favouring nutrient recovery
• Scale-up of novel configurations for energy (hydrogen) and resource (P as struvite and N as ammonium salts) recovery from real wastewater.
• Development of modelling tools for a better understanding of biological nutrient removal and recovery processes
• Model-based development and practical implementation of control strategies for an efficient operation of biological systems.
• Mathematical tools to estimate reliability of parameter estimation from experimental data in complex models
• Biological biogas upgrading to increase efficiency in biogas valorization: biological methanation from CO₂ and biological reduction of H₂S.
• Understanding the fundamentals of bioelectrochemical systems fed wastewaters in view of optimisation energy recovery, Scaling-up of bioelectrochemical systems to bridge the gap between lab and pilot scale
• Bioelectrochemical hydrogen production
• Bioelectrochemical ammonium recovery
• Bioelectrochemical reduction of halogenated compounds for aquifer decontamination
• Integration of electrochemical and biological systems in view of developing the new era of the CO₂-based industry where CO2 is first reduced to C1 building blocks and microbial process used these C1 building blocks for the bioproduction of complex organic compounds with high-added value.