Research

Environmental problems present various intimately linked issues in different scientific fields. Geotechnical topics within are associated to fate and transport of contaminants in soils and groundwater, to geoenvironmental structures such as landfills/waste repositories, dams and protection walls, and to geotechnical activities related to natural hazards such as landslides and expansive (clay) soils. Environmental geotechnics is therefore a multidisciplinary science covering topics of the “classical” geotechnics but also geology, mineralogy (particularly clay mineralogy), geochemistry and geophysics.

Our primary areas of research are in the characterization of fundamental properties of different kind of materials and minerals, especially clay minerals with respect to various applications in environmental geotechnics and materials science as well as the specific modification of the properties to the related application parameters.

Special topics of interest include

• Effects of pore water chemistry on clay/soil properties
• Effects of chemical and physical alteration of clay minerals on macroscopic properties
• (Clay) mineral – organic matter interaction
• Surface characteristics of clay minerals (clay minerals as nanoparticles)
• Mineral alteration during weathering processes in the "Critical Zone"
• Developments in quantitative analysis of clay minerals and mineral assemblages