Hester Blommaert

Msc Bioscience Engineer KULeuven (Environmental Technology)
PhD Student ISTERRE University Grenoble Alpes

Environmental chemistry
Soil chemistry
Plant morphology, anatomy and physiology
Cadmium
Cacao

For my master’s research at KULeuven, Belgium I studied the effect of the application of lime (CaCO3) on soil on the uptake of the contaminant Cadmium (Cd) by cacao (VBI Student Research Award).

My curiosity was raised after this work and I decided to continue research on the fate of Cd in cacao trees. For this PhD work, I use a combination of elemental analyses (ICP-MS), Cd stable isotope analyses (MC-ICP-MS), and physical approaches (XANES and XRF) to elucidate the distribution of Cd in cacao plants. This work fits in the wider perspective to lower Cd uptake in cacao beans. This project is guided by the help of many actors from different institutes ; Cocoa Research Centre (Trinidad), ESPOL Guayaquil (Ecuador), ENS Lyon (France), and KULeuven (Belgium).

Researchgate
LinkedIn

Supervision :

Géraldine Sarret (CNRS, ISTerre)

Contact

Université Grenoble Alpes
Laboratoire ISTERRE
1381 rue de la piscine, 38400, Saint Martin d’Hères
hester.blommaert univ-grenoble-alpes.fr