team VITO

VITO is a leading, independent research organization with 947 employees with already 164 international employees from 43 different countries that provides sustainable technological solutions to industry and public authorities. The VITO Laboratory for inorganic and organic analysis (GOAL), led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Voorspoels, has broad experience in developing R&D projects (Coordination of FP5, 6, 7, H2020 and national R&D projects). Prof. Dr. Voorspoels has 15 years of experience with a wide array of relevant analytical techniques relevant and an h-index of 39. His team has huge experience and expertise in the determination and speciation of elements in a variety of matrices, environmental regulatory monitoring, physical-chemical characterization of nanomaterials and developing of analytical techniques for nanoparticles characterization. In addition, GOAL is an accredited according to ISO 17025/ISO 9001 reference laboratory for environmental monitoring in the Flemish region of Belgium since 1994. As such it will share the knowledge with NKUA regarding all regulatory analytical methods for all environmental matrices and participation in European technical committees with respect to the analysis of plastic waste (e.g., CEN TC 351, CEN TC 444).

VITO will provide training in sample pre-treatment and analysis (e.g. projects MS4Plastics, Stiemerlab). Finally, VITO will share their experience in supporting diversity as an asset for innovation and enrichment of diverse work environment. VITO researchers involved in this project were amongst the first to utilize the single particle ICP-MS technique for characterization of microplastics, and over the course of the nexus monARC project, VITO will share their excellence in single particle ICP-MS analysis with NKUA researchers. In addition, they will also demonstrate applications of multidetector FFF systems, SEC, Py-GC-MS, STEM, μ-XRF, DLS, and NTA in microplastics characterization.