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Digitalisation & Smart Technologies can build a sustainable society of the future & strategically address challenges related to the SDGs. Eleven Green Talents have joined forces & published their view on a Smart Green Planet. A wonderful outcome of alumni cooperation on the Networking Conference 2019. (June 2021)

Testimonial

“The research stay not only met the expectations but surpassed them by far. I have learnt new techniques, improved my professional skills, developed an interesting research work and the most important I have felt integrated and supported by the research group of Prof. Baltruschat. Furthermore, I have learnt about the different topics of research developed in the group about batteries and fuel cells which are different of my electrochemical water treatment technologies field of research, that has been highly enriching.”
Sergi Garcia-Segura, Green Talent 2015

Dr Sergi GARCIA-SEGURA (Spain)

During his PhD, Sergi constructed a flow plant equipped with solar panels for water treatment and carried out an engineering study of electro-chemical filter cells.

PhD in Electrochemistry

Current position: Assistant Research Professor at the Arizona State University, United States of America

Research focus: environmental electrochemistry and water treatment technologies

Sergi was awarded with the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) Prize for Environmental Electrochemistry in Switzerland in 2014, and the Antonio Aldaz Award from the Electrochemistry Group of the Royal Spanish Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) in 2016.

2017 Electrochimica Acta and ISE Travel Award for Young Electrochemists, International Society of Electrochemistry

CV as submitted for the Green Talents award (2015):

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Research focus: novel water technologies involving photochemical and electrochemical processes to remove organic pollutants from water

Sergi Garcia-Segura has provided invaluable research to the improvement of water quality. His work offers impetus for society to develop into an eco-friendly one worldwide, generating sustainable development founded on a Green economy.

During his research career, Sergi Garcia-Segura developed novel environmental-friendly technologies to remove persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from aquatic environments. Common organic pollutants are pharmaceuticals, organic dyes, pesticides, and petrochemical products. Because of their low concentrations in the environment, these POPs had previously been considered innocuous. However, during the last decades, their noxious effects even at low concentrations have been corroborated. This demonstrates that merely diluting these substances is not an adequate solution for water pollution. The conventional physical-chemical and biological water treatments are not efficient for the removal of POPs, hence new alternative treatments were required. In this context, Sergi has been working on the development of Electrochemical Advanced Oxidation Processes (EAOPs) to treat waste water that contains POPs.

Sergi obtained his Chemistry degree from the University of Barcelona in 2009, and then a Master's in Electrochemical Science from the University of Alicante in 2013. The following year, he received a degree in Material Science Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. On top of that, he completed pre-doctoral research at Queensland University in Australia and finished his PhD in 2014.

During his PhD, he published more than thirty articles in peer-reviewed international journals. In the laboratories of Universitat de Barcelona, Sergi constructed a flow plant equipped with solar panels for water treatment and carried out an engineering study into electrochemical filter cells. These studies are a great achievement for his environmental electrochemical research.

Due to the high quality of his research and his important contributions to the environmental electrochemistry field, Sergi won the International Society of Electrochemistry Prize for Environmental Electrochemistry of 2014 in Switzerland. He is now continuing his research at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil with his main focus being on the development of photocatalytic and electrochemical technologies to decontaminate waste waters.

The jury was impressed with Sergi’s outstanding academic record and the variety of publications and reviews to which he has contributed. In his participation within the Green Talents Forum, Sergi can build bridges and new international links for future collaborations.