PhD Award in water chemistry of the Society of Water Chemistry

- supported by the Walter Kölle Foundation -

The Society of Water Chemistry of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) has awarded the water chemistry PhD Award annually since 1992. The prize recognizes outstanding dissertations that have made significant contributions to the advancement of a water chemistry topic and have received an overall grade of "very good" or better. The award includes a certificate and €1,500 in prize money provided by the Walter Kölle Foundation. The award ceremony traditionally takes place during the Society of Water Chemistry's annual conference, "WASSER." A committee appointed by the Division Board decides on the award.

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The water chemistry PhD Award was awarded to Dr. Finnian Freeling on May 11, 2026, at the WASSER 2026 trade fair in Kiel:

"[...] in recognition of his outstanding dissertation, entitled "Transformation Products of Micropollutants in the Aquatic Environment: Highly Prevalent but Commonly Overlooked," completed at the DVGW Technology Center for Water (TZW) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thomas Ternes at the University of Koblenz. One of the greatest gaps in knowledge regarding anthropogenic trace substances and their holistic assessment is the understanding of the formation of transformation products that cause adverse (eco)toxicological effects. Mr. Freeling addressed this problem in his dissertation, investigating the occurrence, formation, and fate of persistent transformation products using three prominent examples: trifluoroacetate, sulfamate, and pantoprazole. Dr. Freeling demonstrated an excellent grasp of the broad topic of his work and mastered the scientific questions with a very high level of expertise, creativity, and the application of complex analytical methods, resulting in scientific publications in high-ranking journals. His The results represent an innovative approach to the assessment of anthropogenic trace substances. The dissertation is therefore an important contribution to the protection and preservation of our environment and health.

The water chemistry PhD Award was awarded to Dr. Jonathan Zweigle on May 26, 2025, at the WASSER 2025 trade fair in Münster:

"[...] in recognition of his outstanding dissertation, completed in the working group of Prof. Dr. Christian Zwiener at the University of Tübingen, entitled 'Characterization and Identification of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in the Environment and Consumer Products via High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Oxidative Conversion'." In his dissertation, Dr. Zweigle made significant progress in the development of analytical screening methods using high-resolution mass spectrometry and the identification of PFAS in products and environmental samples. The approaches developed by Dr. Zweigle were implemented in the open-source tool "PF∆Screen," which provides the scientific community with a PFAS-optimized workflow for the evaluation of HRMS data. Furthermore, Dr. Zweigle successfully advanced the PFAS sum parameter TOP assay in PhotoTOP, thereby not only circumventing problems of the TOP assay but also enabling the characterization of fluorinated side-chain polymers in solid samples.