Integrated Human Practices

DEME Group Waste Manager: Laurent Dossche

DEME group is a world leader in the specialized domains of dredging, marine infrastructure, solutions for the offshore energy market, environmental works and concessions. Regarding wastewater, they have considerable experience in the design, construction and operation of industrial wastewater plants.

This meeting was also more focused on understanding the methods that are commonly used to treat the metal contamination and the types of metals that are commonly present. According to Laurent, the physical chemical methods are commonly used and in relation to Belgium he mention about the lead contamination.

Nuoro: Jan Bos Van Hemelrijck and Kris Gorissen

Nuoro is an engineering office focused on the water technology. All of their workers have prior experience working with water technology companies. At Nuoro, 50% of the team is dedicated to research and development, while the other 50% focuses on equipment installation.

During our meeting with Jan and Kris, two water experts, we presented our project, and they believe it could be a good solution, especially because we don’t use chemicals. According to them, regulations surrounding chemical use are becoming stricter, which creates a need for new technologies. Additionally, the concentration limits are becoming harder to meet, and many current methods struggle to achieve low concentrations because the metals are complexed. Therefore, our bacteria must be specific enough to remove metals even at low concentrations.

Regarding one of our ideas (using gel beads to trap our bacteria) they mentioned that it's important to consider the cleaning process, as customers will not want to clean the system every week.

As for metal recovery, it only makes sense if it's financially viable. This depends on where in the process the technology is applied. If it’s mainly at the end, where the goal is to remove metals in low concentrations, recovery may not be cost-effective.

Carmeuse: Jurgen Vanden Bon and Monica Hernandez Rodriguez

Carmeuse is a global manufacturer of lime and limestone products used for many applications.

We did a meeting with Jurgen (EU market manager) and Monica (technical expert in environment EU), where we presented our project and received some feedback. They found our idea interesting, especially for the recovery of expensive metals. Working on a project involving a circular economy is promising, though it is not very common.

Regarding the metals we should focus on, they mentioned copper, zinc, cobalt, and vanadium (especially in the Netherlands and Belgium). To make metal recovery viable, we need to focus on rare and expensive metals. Focusing on those metals would build a solid business case. They also mentioned that some metals are difficult to remove with current methods, which is where our project could offer a solution.

In terms of sustainability, they appreciated the closed-loop aspect of the project but pointed out that the burning step for metal recovery is not ideal.

Waterleau: Joris Moors, Philippe Schnongs and Michel Caluwé

Waterleau is a world-leading water technology company and they are experts in closing the water loop. About wastewater, they use aerobic and anaerobic technologies. We decided to contact the company because they have different types of technology and we thought they would have a nice perspective on our project.

We did a meeting with Joris Moors (commercial leader), Philippe Schnongs (VP of process), and Michel Caluwé (head of the R&D department). They also mentioned that the parameters for some metals are getting strict, making the removal more complex. When the metals are removed, they are not recuperated and when the biomass has heavy metals present, it can not be used as a fertilizer. Based on that, they believe that our project can be a good idea.

They mentioned that they have no experience working with synthetic biology. They reinforced the importance of the bacteria not escaping with the water that is released, which adds complexity to the process. One solution is immobilizing the bacteria (in a membrane, for example), but this will impact which part of the process the method can be used.

One idea of an application that they mention is to up-concentrate the sludge until there are enough metals to be recuperated. To facilitate the recuperation of the metals, they mentioned that it is easier to do it when you have only one metal instead of a cocktail. The discussion we had with them help us to reflect more about where can our project be a good solution.

Supetai Project by KICK KU Leuven: Defne Kincir

The Supetai project is a transdisciplinary and transcontinental cooperation between KU Leuven, Kenyan NGO Sabore’s Well, and Santa Clara University (USA). They developed a project to obtain drinkable water. Click here to learn more about the Supetai project.

We did a meeting with Defne from KU Leuven KICK to discuss about possibilities of collaboration between our team and the Supetai team. More about that can be found on our Sustainability page , especially concerning SDG 17.

Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij (VMM): Tania Verhoeve

The Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij , also known as the Flanders Environment Agency, is an agency of the Flemish government.

We held a meeting with Tania Verhoeve, who works on circular water (sustainable water use and water reuse) at the VMM. She shared useful links that helped us better understand the issue of heavy metal contamination in Belgium. The sectors known for higher emissions of heavy metals include the metal, chemical, and trade and services industries [2]. The metals that commonly exceed the limits are cobalt, uranium, arsenic, and zinc [3].

Tania explained how the limits for heavy metals are regulated in Belgium. These limits are proposed by the European Union, and Belgium is given several years to comply. In addition, each region must monitor the most common metals in its area and establish ecotoxicological limits for these substances.

This meeting helped us better understand how the limits are set and what companies need to do to discharge their wastewater.

Ekoli: Sirarpi Vardanian

Ekoli aims to give every child the opportunity to explore, create, and experiment in the field of science. As an organization dedicated to making science engaging and accessible, Ekoli hosts hands-on workshops in schools, ensuring that children from all backgrounds can experience the scientific world.

During our meeting, Sirarpi gave us some tips on how to do better workshops. The tips are: make the content of the workshop comprehensible, use simple language, interact with the children, and go to the schools instead of asking for them to come to us.

Prof. Susana Rocha

Susana Neves Rocha is a Professor in the Faculty of Sciences at KU Leuven, specializing in interactions between materials and biology.

She was one of the professors that we interviewed for our series "Woman in Science". Click here to see more about this project.

Prof. Nadia Everaert

Nadia Everaert is an Associate Professor at KU Leuven, leading the Nutrition and Animal-Microbiota EcoSystems (NAMES) lab. Her research focuses on microbiota colonization, gut health, and gut function in monogastric species like poultry and pigs.

She was one of the professors that we interviewed for our series "Woman in Science". Click here to see more about this project.

Green Light For Girls: Melissa Rancourt

Green Light for Girls (G4G) is a well-established international non-profit organization, with its global headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and offices in the US. Driven by a passion for empowering girls, they aim to inspire confidence and share the excitement of science in all its forms!

Our team did a meeting with Melissa from G4G to ask for feedback on how to make science more inclusive and how to optimize our outreach activities.

Besides that, G4G will organize an event in October and two of our team members will be present as mentors.

Neurodiversity Belgium: Beverley Sinton and Lora-Elly Van Neuwenhuysen

Neurodiversity Belgium is an organization that supports neurodivergent individuals of all ages, including those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia. They collaborate with schools and educators, providing evidence-based information about these conditions. Their goal is to help children and adolescents reach their full potential in the school environment.

We recently had a meeting with Beverly Sinton and Lora from Neurodiversity Belgium. They shared valuable resources that we used to develop our Inclusivity Guide. One of the key resources was the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines" [4]. During the meeting, they also gave us general tips, some of which we implemented in our wiki: adding descriptive texts to images, simplifying the language as much as possible, and avoiding rapid movements and flashes. They also emphasized the importance of incorporating sensory elements, which inspired us to create a tactile poster.

Additionally, we were planning a virtual meet-up, and they provided advice on how to make it more accessible. They suggested using Zoom, as it offers better accessibility features compared to other platforms. For slide presentations, they recommended ensuring good color contrast, and during registration, it’s important to ask if participants require any accessibility accommodations. Unfortunately, the meet-up didn’t happen due to low registration, but we have documented their advice for future online events.

BeWise: Delphine Laboureur

BeWise is a non-profit organization that supports female scientists. They do different types of events, such as Leadership Night, Woman in Science Day, Lunch and Learn, and Mentoring programs.

We did a meeting with Delphine Laboureur, the vice president of BeWise. She gave us some tips on how to ensure gender equality in science. More people must ask this question, the awareness of the situation is important. Besides that, she gave us some tips for the workshops. One idea that she gave us it to ask the children to draw a scientist and hopefully they will draw a woman. Another important thing is to send a woman to give the workshop, for them to have a role model and to do some hands-on activities.

Prof. Xing Yang

We interviewed Xing Yang, a KU Leuven Professor, for our series on "Woman in Science". Click here to see more about this project. Read more about her Xing Yang in the Experts section.

Prof. Vitor Pinheiro, our PI

Vitor is an associate professor at KU Leuven, where he teaches the course Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, and he is our team PI. Throughout the year, he has helped us with the project by guiding us in choosing an interesting topic and supporting its development. After selecting our topic, we developed a plan to follow and presented it to him.

After our presentation, he gave us some valuable advice. First, regarding our project, he emphasized the importance of having a clear narrative. After this feedback, we focused on gaining a deeper understanding of what we were proposing and reached out to several companies to verify if our project idea offered a viable solution.

As for the wet lab work, he recommended looking into colorimetric methods, such as the one for Copper, which we eventually incorporated into our project.

For the dry lab, he suggested that using AlphaFold would be a good approach for modeling. He also encouraged us to integrate more dry lab elements into our project, offering ideas like making the sequences more specific and then testing these new sequences in the wet lab.

In addition to this meeting, Vitor held weekly meetings with our Team Captain, Jena, helping her make key decisions for our project.

Prof. Xing Yang

Xing Yang is a Professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering at KU Leuven. Her research is mainly focused on purification and separation. This is mainly done by designing or applying synthetic membranes.

We had the opportunity to interview Xing Yang for our series "Woman in Science”, as already mentioned, and we also asked her some questions related to our project. During our meeting with her, she explained more about how membranes work and that they can be easily scaled up and they can be used continuously.

About the measurements, she also mentioned the ICP-OES technique. She informed us that samples with a single ion are easier to measure because the presence of other ions can lead to interference. As mentioned already, we did not have time to do this measurement but we will consider doing it on the future.

Talking about the sustainable point of view, it is important to reflect on what you want to achieve: a process that is more effective or cleaner. The concept of sustainability depends on the angle at which you see it.

Prof. Arnout Voet

Arnout Voet is a Professor of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology at KU Leuven. He teaches Biomolecular Modelling and Bioinformatics courses

He adviced us via email about our molecular dynamics plans and because of his advice we realised that it would not be feasible to get our desired programs working within the timefraim of iGEM. He thus safed us from losing a lot of time.