Nicolas Derlon

Background

About Nicolas Derlon

I hold a MS of Process Engineering from the National Polytechnical Institute of Grenoble (INPG, France, 2005) and a PhD in Environmental Science (INSA, University of Toulouse, France, 2008). During my PhD, I focused on understanding the mechanisms of microbial competition between autotrophic and heterotrophic bacteria in nitrifying biofilms. I joined the Advanced Water Management Centre (University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) in January 2009 as Research Officer in the ARC funded research project on Sewer Biotransformation and Modeling. Since September 2009, I am researcher at EAWAG in the Process Engineering Department. My research interests include the biological treatment of wastewater (biofilm systems, granular sludge system), the decentralized production of drinking water (e.g. gravity-driven membrane filtration) and excess sludge reduction. Research interests- Membrane systems and biofouling: biofilm structure formation on membrane surfaces during gravity-driven dead-end ultrafiltration, influence of predation on biofilm structure, influence of biofouling on the permeate quality- Biofilm and granular sludge systems: Monitoring biofilm development in-situ in reactors and distribution systems, biofilm/granules physical structure, biofilm/granules microbial structure, process development, mathematical modeling- Excess sludge reduction: endogenous process at low ORP, active biomass and endogenous decay product biodegradability, hydrolysis process- Development of imaging tools and image analysis: Optical Coherence Tomography, stereomicroscopy, home-made programs for the quantification of the physical biofilm properties.