This thesis deals with the dynamical processes in atoms and small molecules initiated by the absorption of ultrashort, coherent light pulses. The studied phenomena takeplace on the femtosecond (1 fs = 10−15 s) and attosecond (1 as = 10−18 s) timescales and critically depend on the properties of the light fields that drive them. Wework with infrared (IR) femtosecond laser pulses, which we manipulat

Background Several pressing issues face municipal planners including increased land use and climate change. Managing these issues requires a balance between different actions to accommodate citizen’s demands of ecosystem services (ES) and development projects. The implementation of ES as a new tool for assessments needs to be contrasted by research considering existing tools such as Environmental

The local lattice strain evolution during electrochemical hydrogen charging and mechanical loading in 25Cr-7Ni super duplex stainless steel were measured in-situ using synchrotron high-energy x-ray diffraction. Post-mortem electron backscattered diffraction analysis showed that the austenite phase underwent plastic deformation in the near-surface due to hydrogen-enhanced localized plasticity, wher

Climate warming has changed vegetation phenology, and the phenology-associated impacts on terrestrial water fluxes remain largely unquantified. The impacts are linked to plant adjustments and responses to climate change and can be different in different hydroclimatic regions. Based on remote sensing data and observed river runoff of hydrological station from six river basins across a hydroclimatic

Semantic segmentation is a fundamental problem in visual perception with a wide range of applications ranging from robotics to autonomous vehicles, and recent approaches based on deep learning have achieved excellent performance. However, to train such systems there is in general a need for very large datasets of annotated images. In this thesis we investigate and propose methods and setups for wh

A replacement name Obscuroplaca for the illegitimate genus Phaeoplaca is introduced. The three known species are transferred as Obscuroplaca camptidia, O. ochrolechioides, and O. tortuca.

Temporally resolved assessment of residential exposure to radon is essential for investigating radon's acute health effects. Recent studies have used large numbers of short-term radon measurements to model the spatiotemporal variations in radon concentrations. However, most short-term radon measurements in the northeastern and midwestern United States were conducted in the basements, which were le

The near zero liquid discharge (NZLD) approach, by recovering water and dissolved valuable salts, is the most attractive clean solution for the valorisation of brines from seawater desalination reverse osmosis (SWD-RO) plants. In this perspective, a key aspect is calcium removal/recovery, to avoid scaling problems in the successive advanced separation units for recovering other valuable salts. In

Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a result of natural and/or anthropogenic activities, causing undesirable detrimental effects on the environment and the human health. Herein, an integrated process based on Membrane Distillation (MD), photocatalysis and Polymer-enhanced Ultrafiltration (PEUF) was developed for an effective remediation of arsenic (As). This approach, whose effectiveness wa

Water and energy are two intimately interconnected issues of strategic relevance for a sustainable industrial development. Herein, we integrated light-harvesting/self-heating membranes and salinity gradient technology with the aim to implement the innovative concept of light-to-heat-to-power conversion. Novel photothermal membranes, prepared by immobilizing silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on the top

Mining is an economically-beneficial activity recognized as crucial in modern society since almost every aspect of our lives relies on minerals. However, intensive mining activities impose a severe strain on the water-energy nexus. In fact, mining ventures: i) need massive amount of water in various ore processing steps; ii) generate a huge amount of waste (tailings), generally transferred to tail

The impact of fouling on the performance of Reverse Electrodialysis operated with highly concentrated brine is a poorly investigated area. In this work, the fouling propensity and stability of Ion Exchange Membranes (IEMs), developed by Fujifilm Manufacturing Europe BV (The Netherlands), is investigated under the condition of seawater and brine. The fouling propensity of the IEMs was depicted by t

In recent years, lithium production has been increasing as a result of the growing market demand. Salt-lake brines are one of the main sources of raw lithium, which can be concentrated and purified by natural evaporation. This time-consuming production causes a loss of around 85–95 % of the water contained in the extracted brine. In this context, new technologies could replace the current process

The effect of the conformational state of the polymer coil on the properties of protein-polymer conjugates has been studied for the conjugates of antibody (monoclonal antibody from 6C5 clone against inactivated rabbit muscle glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase; Ab) with poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) or poly-(acrylic acid) (PAA). The pH-dependencies of molecular properties and structural param

In this study, novel asymmetric integral cation exchange membranes were prepared by the wet phase inversion of sulfonated polysulfone (SPSf) solutions. SPSf with different degrees of sulfonation (DS) was synthesized by variation in the amount of chlorosulfonic acid utilized as a sulfonating agent. The characterization of SPSf samples was performed using FTIR and1H-NMR techniques. SPSf with a DS of

Ion exchange membranes (IEMs) have consolidated applications in energy conversion and storage systems, like fuel cells and battery separators. Moreover, in the perspective to address the global need for non-carbon-based and renewable energies, salinity-gradient power (SGP) harvesting by reverse electrodialysis (RED) is attracting significant interest in recent years. In particular, brine solutions

Salinity Gradient Power - Reverse Electrodialysis (SGP-RED) is a promising membrane-based technology to harvest the energy of mixing from solutions of different ionic concentration. Unfortunately, currently available commercial ion exchange membranes – being not specifically designed for RED – are far from satisfying the requirements of this operation, especially when operated with hyper-concentra

Integration of emerging membrane processes [i.e., forward osmosis (FO), membrane distillation (MD), reverse electrodialysis (RED)] and mature membrane processes [i.e., reverse osmosis (RO)] can address the need for efficient desalination solutions. Utilization of different membrane units in pre- and post-treatment stages allows lowering the energy requirements and environmental impacts of the proc