Profile

Klaus Mosthaf's current research focuses on developing novel digital tools, numerical models, and improved knowledge to describe and quantify the fate and reactive transport of contaminants in porous environments. A primary objective behind his work is to contribute to the assessment and protection of water and groundwater resources from contamination and to explore sustainable and energy-efficient technologies for screening, monitoring, and remediating groundwater contamination. Another focus is model development for coupled processes and systems (e.g., soil-atmosphere, fractures-matrix, enhanced reductive dechlorination, and aquifer thermal energy storage). He has experience with the properties and fate of different contaminants, such as chlorinated solvents, PFAS, and pesticides, as well as with the transport of solutes and heat in porous and fractured geologies, such as limestones and clayey tills. His work is usually closely linked to laboratory experiments and field data, which enhances the understanding and predictability of mass transfer processes in soil and groundwater environments.

Other information

Research areas

Transport processes in porous media, groundwater, contamination, pesticides, chlorinated solvents, PFAS, fractured porous media, numerical modeling, pumping and tracer tests, coupled porous-medium and free flow systems, multiphase flow in porous media, evaporation processes. Software skills: COMSOL Multiphysics, Python, high-performance computing (HPC), FEFlow, MATLAB.

Research and teaching information

Klaus has gained substantial teaching experience by giving lectures, preparing and supervising assignments and tutorials, and supervising >25 theses and special courses at the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. level. He has taken full responsibility for the teaching and coordination of a module of the mandatory M.Sc. course Environmental modelling (12104). He has been contributing with lectures and a large assignment in the elective M.Sc. course “Contaminated sites” (12330). He has expanded his intercultural experience by teaching in the framework of the Sino-Danish Center online classes in “Pollutants and Pollution Control” online and in person in China. In 2024, he took over the coordination of the SDC module “Pollutants and Pollution Control”. Since May 2024, Klaus has been course coordinator of the Nordic Masters program Enviro5Tech. He is main supervisor of one PhD student and has been co-supervisor of two PhD students.

Since 2020, Klaus Mosthaf has been a board member of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences on Soil and Groundwater (ATV Jord og Grundvand), where he is involved in the planning and coordination of the foundation’s activities and in organization of workshops that bring together people from universities, consultancy, and public authorities and foster scientific exchange. Klaus has been active as reviewer for nine WoS listed journals, and he has been part of three evaluation committees for senior researcher positions heading the hiring committee for an assistant/associate professor position.