Sebastià Puig is an Associate Professor at the Universitat de Girona (UdGHe has held positions as a postdoctoral researcher at TUDelft (The Netherlands) and the Catalan Institute for Water Research (Spain). He has received several awards, including the "Young Talented Researcher in Sustainable Water Management" award from Fundación Botin in 2014 and the ICREA Academia award from the Catalan government in 2019. He has actively participated in over 45 research projects and development contracts, and he is currently involved in  four EU projects, one Swedish project, three national projects and one industrial national project. He has authored 127 peer-reviewed publications and three European patents. He has also supervised 6 postdoctoral researchers and 11 doctoral theses. He conducted research stays at Ghent University (Belgium) and Sapienza University of Rome (Italy).  From 2022, he is an Associate Editor of Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology.

Research interests

Climate change and depletion of natural resources are critical global environmental challenges. To address these issues, my research aims to explore innovative approaches for the remediation of contaminated water and recalcitrant carbon dioxide (CO₂) streams.

In the upcoming years, I intend to focus on two primary research areas. Firstly, I will emphasize the fundamental importance of water recovery as a necessity for sustainable development. I will investigate the bio-electrochemical interactions between microorganisms to remediate polluted water.

Secondly, I am interested in exploring BioElectroCarbon recycling as a sustainable and resilient solution. This approach involves developing a biorefinery that uses electron-driven microbial reactions to convert recalcitrant CO₂ into biobased products, such as biofuels, building blocks and food ingredients. This research will contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting a circular economy.

Keywords

bioelectroCO2 recycling, biofuels, electro bioremediation, environmental biotechnology, microbial electrosynthesis, water recovery