Skip to content

Internships

Within our group, we are always looking for interested students that want to do an internship with us. Have a look at our research pages to get an idea of the projects you can work on during an internship. We accept students from numerous backgrounds, ranging from physics to chemistry, or (medical) biology.

Development of a real-time detection strategy for monitoring the highly reactive hydrazine molecule

Start date: Q4 2026 or later

Level: MSc

Hydrazine is an extremely reactive molecule with commercial relevance, used in the pharmaceutical industry, as rocket fuel, blowing agent, to polymerize molecules and many more applications. Hydrazine is currently produced in the chemical industry. However, it is also a key intermediate in the energy metabolism of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria, which are applied in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for the efficient, low-energy and environmentally friendly removal of toxic nitrogen compounds, i.e. ammonium. The enzyme that converts ammonium and nitric oxide to hydrazine in anammox bacteria is called hydrazine synthase.

To examine the feasibility of this biological hydrazine production approach, we need a direct, and preferable online, method to detect hydrazine. To this day, there are several detection methods for hydrazine and derived molecules, which are all based on offline derivatization of hydrazine with other chemicals for its detection. Although sensitive, derivatization methods will always rely on the chemical reactions performed being efficient and unhampered. Preliminary results showed that we were able to detect hydrazine using proton transfer reaction / selective reagent ion – time–of–flight – mass spectrometry (PTR/SRI-ToF-MS). Also, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has shown its potential for hydrazine detection at low concentrations. During this internship, you will further explore these analytical techniques for the detection of hydrazine in real-time.

Outline:

  • Identify MS and IMS analysis strategies for hydrazine through literature research
  • Implement and test analysis strategies on hydrazine reference standard
  • Analytically validate the most suitable and reliable strategy for real-time hydrazine detection.
  • Monitor hydrazine production in an anammox bioreactor

If you are interested, please contact dr. Joris Meurs (joris.meurs@ru.nl).

Multispecies open-path molecular absorption spectroscopy

Start date: anytime

Level: MSc

Are you an enthusiastic student in Physics and Astronomy, Molecular Sciences, or related fields who is looking for a Master’s internship? Are you keen on developing or working with novel scientific instruments? Would you like to learn new concepts of laser spectroscopy and use them in real-life research? Then you have a part to play as an intern in our research group. Join us, learn how things work in laser spectroscopy, and gain hands-on experience in the lab and in the field!

If you are interested, please contact: Roderik Krebbers (Roderik.Krebbers@science.ru.nl)