Douglas Call

About

Dr. Douglas Call is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on biological and electrochemical processes to treat water and wastewater and recover resources from wastes. He is interested in technologies that recover resources from wastes and generate new resources using lower carbon footprints than conventional approaches. His work includes developing methods such as rewiring anaerobic digestion to produce high-value chemicals, creating hybrid microbial-material interfaces for transforming aqueous contaminants, desalination of brackish water using capacitive deionization, improving phosphorus removal from wastewater through biological approaches, and using electrochemical techniques to remove and recover carbon dioxide and metals from aqueous sources. Additionally, he explores microbial electrochemical technologies for converting nitrogen gas into ammonium. Dr. Call has received significant funding for his research, including grants from the National Science Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and has contributed to advancing sustainable water treatment and resource recovery technologies.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Organic chemistry
• Geology
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental science
• Inorganic chemistry
• Geotechnical engineering
• Meteorology
• Nuclear chemistry
• Chromatography

Selected publications

• Emerging lanthanum (III)-containing materials for phosphate removal from water: A review towards future developments

  Environment International · 2020 · 119 citations

  O), all of which reduce the bioavailability of La in aquatic environments. Overall, LM use presents a low risk of adverse effects in water with pH > 7 and moderate-to-high bicarbonate alkalinity, although caution should be applied when considering LM use in aquatic systems with acidic pH values and low bicarbonate alkalinity. Moving forward, we recommend additional research dedicated to understanding La release from LM under diverse environmental conditions as well as long-term exposures on ecol…

  DOI

• Influence of natural organic matter and pH on phosphate removal by and filterable lanthanum release from lanthanum-modified bentonite

  Water Research · 2021 · 69 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Asymmetrical removal of sodium and chloride in flow-through capacitive deionization

  Water Research · 2020 · 34 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Improving Long-Term Anode Stability in Capacitive Deionization Using Asymmetric Electrode Mass Ratios

  ACS ES&T Engineering · 2021-12-02 · 25 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Activated carbon (AC) electrodes are used for desalination in capacitive deionization (CDI) because they provide a large, porous surface area at a low cost. In short-term tests, AC electrodes can achieve relatively high salt adsorption capacities. In long-term tests, desalination performance degrades significantly. The poor performance has been attributed to the corrosion of carbon in the anode electrode. Here, we show a simple strategy to improve anode stability by changing the mass ratio of AC…

  PublisherDOI

• The phosphorus challenge: biotechnology approaches for a sustainable phosphorus system

  Current Opinion in Biotechnology · 2024-09-19 · 22 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Phosphorus (P) is essential for growing crops, but the supply of high-quality phosphate rock reserves used for fertilizer production is finite while losses of P from the food/waste system cause considerable environmental damage. A variety of emerging approaches in biotechnology are reviewed that hold promise for improving the sustainability of P use in the food/water systems. These include improved sensors, cell culture approaches to meat production, bio-based P adsorption and transformation str…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Leveraging the multifunctional redox properties of pyrogenic materials to enable biological transformations of aqueous organic contaminants

  NSF · $500k · 2020–2026

• EAGER Electrically Driving the Microbial Conversion of Nitrogen Gas into Ammonia

  NSF · $133k · 2018–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Bruce E. Logan

  Pennsylvania State University

  31 shared

• Shaoan Cheng

  17 shared

• Orlando Coronell

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  10 shared

• Tom Sleutels

  9 shared

• Adriaan W. Jeremiasse

  Magneto Special Anodes (Netherlands)

  9 shared

• H.V.M. Hamelers

  Wageningen University & Research

  9 shared

• René A. Rozendal

  Paques (Netherlands)

  9 shared

• Detlef R.U. Knappe

  North Carolina State University

  8 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Civil Engineering

  University of California, Berkeley

  1990

• M.S., Civil Engineering

  University of California, Berkeley

  1986

• B.S., Civil Engineering

  University of California, Berkeley

  1984

Awards & honors

• STC: Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability…
• Biocatalyst Interactions with Gases (BIG) Collaboration fund…
• CAREER: Leveraging the Multifunctional Redox Properties of P…

Similar researchers at North Carolina State University

• Joel Ducosteh-41
• Sankarasubramanian Arumugamh-35
• Alex Alberth-31