Characterization of organic contaminants in industrial wastewaters from direct discharges and their behavior in fluvial systems of North Rhine-Westphalia [Elektronische Ressource] / Oxana Botalova

Characterization of organic contaminants in industrial wastewaters from direct discharges and their behavior in fluvial systems of North Rhine-Westphalia From the Faculty of Georesources and Materials Engineering of the RWTH Aachen University Submitted by Oxana Botalova, MSc from Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan, USSR) in respect of the academic degree of Doctor of Natural Sciences approved thesis Advisors: Univ.-Prof. Dr.rer.nat. Jan Schwarzbauer PD Dr.rer.nat. Christoph Hilgers Date of the oral examination: 01.12.2010 This thesis is available in electronic format on the university library’s website Acknowledgements Financial support for my research was provided by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under grant no. Schw750/10-1. The work was established at the Institute of Geology and Geochemistry of Petroleum and Coal (LEK) of the RWTH Aachen University. I am deeply grateful to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Jan Schwarzbauer for his continuous support, inspiration, fruitful discussions, valuable suggestions, and encouragement during my doctoral work. My special thanks go to my second supervisor Prof. Dr. Ralf Littke for his interest in my research, suggestions, valuable remarks and the discussions of my work during seminars.