Dr. Oded Nir joined the ZIWR this past October 2017. Here below a short bio:
I received all my academic degrees from the Technion, where I first completed a BSc in Environmental Engineering, and then I attained my PhD (direct track) in Prof. Ori Lahav's lab. The main topic of my thesis was the behavior of acid-base species (focusing on boron) during the process of reverse osmosis. Studies included pilot-scale experiments and computer simulations, combining mass transport and geochemical modelling. The outcome of my work was a new operational approach for boron removal by RO, as well as a simulation tool which allows, for the first time, to accurately predict pH changes in RO process streams. I was also involved in several other projects, amongst them some related to the fields of water treatment and resource recovery from waste stream.
As a post-doc, I worked in two world-leading membrane research groups located in Europe. First, I spent six months in Prof. Bart van der Bruggen's lab in Leuven University, Belgium, working on modeling arsenic removal by reverse osmosis. Subsequently, I worked two years in Prof. Matthias Wessling's group in RWTH-Aachen University, Germany, researching mainly the ultrafiltration of soft nanocolloids (microgels), as well as the application of polyelectrolyte membranes for improving the quality of treated wastewater, while recovering phosphate as fertilizer.
I recently moved to Midreshet Ben-Gurion along with my family. Here in my new lab I intend to follow three main research themes: 1) To develop new sustainable processes for water treatment coupled with metals / nutrients recovery based on various physico-chemical separation technologies, with special focus on membrane technology; 2) Study the mass-transfer and geochemical phenomena underlying these processes using both simple and advanced analytical techniques; 3) To develop new and improved process simulation tools, valid for large-scale, high recovery systems.
Read more about Oded: 
Oded.pdf.
