The following blog post was contributed by Jannis Wenk, Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering.
The 83rd meeting of the German Water Chemistry Society, with a record attendance of more than 300 participants, was held from 22 – 24 May 2017. This year the meeting took place in Donaueschingen, a town in the Black Forest, where the Danube River begins its 2860 km long south eastern journey towards the Black Sea passing through ten countries.
The annual conference provides a platform for the Central European water chemistry research community and is traditionally well attended by delegates from authorities and water utilities from Germany and neighbouring countries. The conference programme consisted of 26 presentations and 90 posters from the areas of water and waste water treatment, groundwater, drinking water, microbiology and water analysis. Dr Jannis Wenk, Lecturer in Water Science and Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering, represented WIRC with a poster that was based on his engagement in the German Water Chemistry Society task group on oxidative water treatment processes.
The special conference topic of this year was “Building Products and Water Quality”, which included for example presentations on how to quantify and assess the long term leaching of chemicals from building products into both the water cycle and into drinking water. Some recent developments on legislation aspects to regulate the release of contaminants into water bodies were summarised by Martin Boehme from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. Among many other quality presentations and posters a highlight to mention was a study on the recent detection of the organofluorine compound trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in local drinking water and how scientists of the Water Technology Centre Karlsruhe were able to identify its upriver source.
Next year the meeting will be held from 07 – 09 May 2018 in Papenburg, which is in the North West of Germany close to the Netherlands.
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