Pieter Bots

After my PhD in environmental mineralogy at the University of Leeds I moved to the University of Manchester in 2012 for a Postdoc position in actinide biogeochemistry on the NERC funded BIGRAD project.

Finally, in 2016 I joined the University of Strathclyde on the Little Forrest Legacy Site (LFLS) immobilization project. The LFLS contains several trenches with radiactive legacy waste from the 1950s and 60s. The University of Strathclyde has a strong prortfolio in grouting techniques. For the LFLS the preferred grouting technique at present is a colloidal silica based grout due to its low viscosity, low toxicity and chemical inertness. There, are however still uncertainties how such a grout would be have within waste forms and how any radionuclides (e.g. Sr-90, Cs-137 and Pu) behave during and after the injection and gelling of colloidal silica based grouts and how additives affect this behaviour.

Nucleation, growth and transformation processes of (nano-particulate) mineral phases in aquatic environments in natural and engineered environments

Surface chemical and thermodynamic control on the solubility and mobility of metals (e.g. contaminants) in natural and engineered environments

The effects of environmental engineering / (bio)remediation strategies on the geochemistry and surface chemistry of inorganic contaminants

The influence of microbial and biological activity on the formation and transformation of mineral phases in aquatic environments