civil engineering
newcastle university
civil engineering and geosciences

civil engineering and geosciences

earth systems and environmental sciences

civil engineering

environment

geotechnics and structures

transport

water

geomatics

geoscience

people

Dr Jan Dolfing
Senior Research Associate

  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 222 8352

Background

Joined the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle in 2006 as part of ECOSERV, an EU-funded excellence team integrating molecular measurement methods, ecological theories, and mathematics to determine fundamental rules that govern the behaviour of biological treatment communities.  His research interests focus on the thermodynamic logic behind microbial interactions in anaerobic ecosystems (with applications in anaerobic wastewater treatment, methanogenic bioreactors and microbial fuel cells).

Qualifications

PhD Microbiology (Wageningen University, 1987) 
MEng Environmental Engineering (Wageningen University, 1980) 

Professional Experience

Engineer with over 25 years experience in environmental applications of chemistry and biology. Well known for his pioneering work on reductive dechlorination.  Authored numerous reports on anaerobic digestion, emission of greenhouse gases, and immobilisation of heavy metals.  Ongoing projects include: Reductive dechlorination of chlordecone, a legacy compound used for pest control in the French West Indies.  

Previous Positions

Post-doc at Michigan State University, USA
Post-doc at EAWAG/ETH in Switzerland
Post-doc at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Senior scientist at Alterra, Wageningen, the Netherlands

Memberships

Dutch Society for Microbiology
International Society for Microbial Ecology
American Society for Microbiology

   

Research interests

My main interest is in the applicability and application of thermodynamic logic to microbial processes and interactions in methanogenic ecosystems. Simple high school chemistry goes a long way to explaining and indeed understanding the hierarchy of microbial niches in the environment and the processes that these organisms catalyse. This approach resulted for example in the formulation of the hypothesis that microorganisms can obtain energy for growth from reductive dechlorination of halogenated organic compounds, a hypothesis that was subsequently experimentally validated. Other examples are the rationalization of why syntrophs in methanogenic ecosystems catalyse incomplete oxidation of organic compounds to acetate and H2, and the “window of opportunity” concept for the methanogenic biodegradation of crude oil. Current ideas revolve about a more in depth understanding of the interactions and ecophysiology of the organisms involved in interspecies hydrogen transfer. Ultimately this modelling and experimentation based understanding will allow us to better engineer or engineer better anaerobic wastewater treatment systems.

 

Postgraduate supervision

Liz Heidrich working on “hydrogen production from wastewater using microbial electrolysis cells”

Evangelos Petropoulos who is “Investigating the true limits to low temperature anaerobic treatment of domestic wastewater”.

 

Esteem Indicators

Reviewer for NERC and BBSRC.

Member of the editorial board of Applied and Environmental Microbiology and of Microbial Ecology (past).

Invited speaker, all expenses paid:

  • Granulation in UASB reactors @ Anaerobic Digestion in Tropical Countries, Sao Paulo, 1985;
  • Hydrogen cycling in dechlorinating ecosystems @ ACS, Washington 2000;
  • Reductive dechlorination of Chlordecone @ Chlordecone in the French West Indies, 2010.

 

Funded projects

What is the true temperature limit for the anaerobic treatment of domestic wastewater?                                  EPSRC 2009-2012, £654,848

Energy-use minimization in residuals management in the personal care product industry 
EU FP7 2008-2011, £198,839

Can understanding the emergent behaviour of mixed culture systems aid wastewater system design and operation?
EPSRC 2007-2009, £151,494 

Undergraduate Teaching

none

Postgraduate Teaching

none