Josep Galceran

Academic

Degree in Chemistry, Barcelona 1980
PhD in Chemistry, Barcelona 1994

Research

An efficient management of water resources must ensure water amount and quality adequate for each use. One of the aims of our research is the development and optimisation of new monitoring techniques that can be useful for water quality control. These analytical techniques will respond to the increasing requirements of environmental quality allowing. We select and develop novel techniques according to two main criteria: I) their capability of being deployed in-situ, as efficient and low-cost passive samplers, and II) their capability to provide information on speciation and availability (through free concentrations and/or fluxes). Indeed, the prevailing paradigms in ecotoxicology (such as the Free Ion Activity Model or the Biotic Ligand Model) have shown that the free ion concentration is much more significant parameter than the total concentration. We are developing DGT (Diffusive Gradients in Thin Films), improving its interpretation and modelling, trying new binding phases, determining key parameters and exploiting information from regimes other than steady state. We have created and developed AGNES (Absence of Gradients and Nernstian Equilibrium Stripping), specially suited to gain access, in very competitive times, to concentrations of free metal concentrations (in river and seawatr, in soils extracts, in wine, in dispersions of nanoparticles, etc.). We also develop the DMT (Donnan Membrane Technique) to gain simultaneous access to free concentrations in multimetal solutions. Our methodology relies on gaining a deep understanding of the physicochemical principles of the analytical technique, as a first step for interpreting the results of each technique, suggesting new designs and strategies of use. Modelling (starting from the selection of the relevant physicochemical phenomena until the resolution of the set of equations either analytically or numerically) has always been an essential part our research activity. We also focus in an adequate understanding of the concepts of chemical speciation and availability of inorganic pollutants and/or nutrients. These concepts determine the properties, distribution and circulation of these elements in the environment.