Mariana Gouvea de Souza

With circularity and accessibility to safe drinking and irrigation water becoming increasingly important, membrane-based adsorption emerges as a promising method to address water scarcity. By selectively removing harmful micropollutants and other undesired components, membrane adsorbers allow for polluted water to be treated and reused safely.

The aim of this research is to develop a platform to design membrane adsorbers using green solvents and/or biopolymers with intrinsic functionalities via electrospinning. The goal is to produce porous hierarchical structures with tunable properties for the efficient removal of micropollutants from wastewater. Beyond the choice of the matrix material, processing conditions will be explored to tailor the membranes towards a specific separation, changing thickness, porosity and pore size. Additionally, co-electrospinning and post functionalisation can be investigated to further tune the adsorption selectivity.

Mariana Gouvea joined the Membrane Materials and Processes Group at the Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Department at TU/e as a doctoral candidate in September 2025. She received her BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 2023. During her bachelor's internship, Mariana spent five months in the Netherlands working on additive manufacturing. For her bachelor’s thesis, she focused on rubber devulcanization. In June 2025, she completed her MSc in Biobased Materials at Maastricht University, where she developed her thesis on (co-)crystallization of biobased polyamides blends via ion shielding.

During her PhD, she will study electrospun membrane adsorbers for the removal of micropollutants from wastewater, focusing on biopolymers and/or green solvents.