Author
Wilko Verweij studied
chemistry at Groningen University, the Netherlands. His master's thesis
(1986) was on speciation of arsenic in a Dutch Lake.
From 1986 until 1991 he did his Ph.D.-research on speciation and
bioavailability of copper in humus-rich Dutch lakes.
Since 1991, he works at the National Institute of Public Health and the
Environment (RIVM) in Bilthoven, the Netherlands.
Although it was not
part of his "official" work, he spent a lot of (private) time on
developing chemical equilibrium models, with special attention for the
user friendliness and chemical intuition.
Main focus of his
current work is the use of bioassays to assess water quality as well as
the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive, both at national
and international level. Wilko visited Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey and
Romania to assist those countries in implementing the Water Framework
Directive.
See e.g. site
of Croatian Twinning Project or site
of Turkish Twinning Project.
History of CHEAQS
For the Ph.D.-project described above, a DOS-program called GECHEQ was
developed to compute the speciation of copper (and of course, other elements). GECHEQ was further
developed and applied by other users as well. In 1996, version 6 of
GECHEQ was released. Development of GECHEQ was stopped by that time.
In 1998, the development of a Windows-program called CHEAQS was
started. In July 1999, the very first version of CHEAQS was released.
Since January 2000, CHEAQS can be downloaded from the Internet.
In March 2004, the first edition of CHEAQS Pro was released.
By November 2008, over 1000 people had registered as user. Because of
regulations, these registrations could not be used anymore.
In June 2009, a new registration procedure started. So please register
(go to the download area)!