Events
WERA Summer School 2025
The WERA Summer School took place in the beautiful city of Heidelberg from 20 to 22 August 2025. This former capital of the Palatinate is characterised by its picturesque old town, impressive castle ruins, and the historic Ruprecht Karls University, the oldest in Germany.
It was in this inspiring setting that the participants exchanged new research approaches and ideas for WERA, seeking valuable inspiration for their future academic work. In glorious summer weather, we spent time not only at the conference hotel, but also undertaking activities together in this unique city.
A particular highlight was the participation of the internationally renowned experts Dr Asya Drenkova-Tuhtan (Estonia) and Prof. Libor Machala (Czech Republic), whose keynote speeches and contributions to scientific discussions greatly enriched the summer school.
Date:
August 20th until August 22nd, 2025
Venue:
Leonardo Hotel in Heidelberg
The program for the Summer School:
Wednesday August 20
12:00 | Welcome - Day 1 and Lunch at the conference hotel |
15:00 | Teambuilding “Team-IQ - Hunting the Truth” |
18:00 | Dinner |
Thursday August 21
| 09:00 – 09:15 | Start of presentations – Day 2 Spokespersones Prof. Dr. Heidrun Steinmetz, Prof. Dr. Sergiy Antonyuk |
Section A) | ADSORBER MATERIALS |
| 09:15 – 09:40 | A1) Marco Wagen Modification of mesoporous silica materials for phosphate recovery from wastewater |
| 09:40 – 10:05 | A2) Sven Schaefer Microporous ZIFs and zeolites as tunable platforms for phosphate recovery from wastewater |
| 10:05 – 10:30 | A3) Aikaterini Moschidi Development of polymeric adsorbent materials for phosphate removal from wastewater |
10:30 – 11:00 | Coffee break |
Section B) | PROCESS ANALYSIS AND CHARACTERIZATION |
| 11:00 – 11:25 | B1) Zeno Romero Thermodynamic modeling of wastewater |
| 11:25 – 11:50 | B3) Hannah Akhtar Exploring Iron precipitation for understanding Phosphate removal from wastewater |
12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch break |
13:00 – 14:00 Chair: Prof. Dr. Schünemann | Prof. Dr. Libor Machala (University of Olomouc, CZ) Iron oxide and ferrite NPs and their photocatalytic applications |
| 14:00 – 14:25 | B4) Jan Ludorf Introduction into Dynamical Extinction Spectroscopy and its Application onto Magnesium Ammonium Phosphate Crystallization |
| 14:25 – 14:50 | B5) Oliver Müller Development and Characterization of fluorescence sensors for phosphate detection |
14:50 – 15:20 | Coffee break |
Poster | Presentation (5 min talk + 2 min discussion) |
A1) Lynn Kirchgatter Modification of mesoporous silica materials for the selective hydrogenation of cyclohex-2-en-1-one | |
| B2) Xueqi Zhang, Thomas Reviol, Jens Staubach, Simon Stephan Coupling molecular thermodynamics models with CFD simulation engines | |
| B2) Isabell Dieudonné, Florian Fleckenstein, Simon Stephan MolMod database – a compilation of models for molecular simulations and fluid theory | |
B3) Marco Tummeley Quantum mechanical calculation of Mössbauer parameters | |
B3) Paul Hausbrand Comparative analysis of incinerated sludge and vivianite for sustainable phosphorus recovery using Mössbauer spectroscopy | |
B5) Florian Altes Using a chain reaction for selective metal sensing | |
18:00 | Dinner at the conference hotel |
Fri. August 22
| 09:00 – 09:05 | Welcome back – Day 3 Spokespersone Prof. Dr. Heidrun Steinmetz |
09:05 – 10:05 Chair: Prof. Dr. Steinmetz | Dr. Asya Drenkova-Tuhtan Safe-by-design formulations of novel nanocomposite magnetic adsorbents for advanced removal and recovery of phosphorus from wastewater |
Section C) | SEPARATION TECHNOLOGY |
10:05 – 10:30 | C1) Marcel Cwienczek Development of magnetic separators for wastewater treatment |
10:30 – 11:00 | Coffee break |
| 11:00 – 11:25 | C2) Christina Zipp Development of an Adsorption-Desorption Process for Phosphate Recovery from Wastewater |
Section D) | PROCESS CHAIN |
| 11:25 – 11:50 | D1) Linda Müller Influence of sewage sludge composition and process parameters on P recovery from sewage sludge |
| 11:50 – 12:05 | D) Dr. Carlo Morandi Integrated Resource Recovery from Wastewater |
| 12:05 – 12:10 | Closing of the Summer School Spokespersones Prof. Dr. Heidrun Steinmetz, Prof. Dr. Sergiy Antonyuk |
12:10 – 13:30 | Lunch break |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | WERA Meeting (attendance: PIs and PhD representative only) |