Phillip Barak

Phillip Barak PhD, Soil Science, 1988 Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Department of Soil Science University of Wisconsin-Madison 1525 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53706-1299 Director of Information Technology and Computing (Mar 2012 - Apr 2017) College of Agricultural and Life Sciences 216G Agricultural Hall University of Wisconsin-Madison Interim Information Technology Director (Mar 2010 - Feb 2012)       College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Interim Assistant Dean (Oct 2006 - May 2007)       Undergraduate Programs & Services       College of Agricultural and Life Sciences       University of Wisconsin-Madison Chair, Information Technology Committee (Sep 2006 - Jun 2010)       University of Wisconsin-Madison Professional Soil Scientist, licensed, State of Wisconsin Tel: 608 890-0689 Fax: 608 265-2595 e-mail: phillip.barak@wisc.edu

Of current interest:
My current research activities relate to nutrient recovery from wastewater, including phosphorus removal from wastewater treatment plants in the form of brushite, a largely neglected phosphorus fertilizer. Coverage of this activity is to be found at: 'UW helps communities create cleaner, greener wastewater', Second Life for Phosphorus', 'Second Life for Phosphorus - Interview', 'Business will implement new phosphorus recycling process in Midwest' and 'New Solution Reduces Phosphorus Pollution and Helps Farmers'.
My most recent push is for nitrogen and potassium recovery from anaerobic digests of various kinds by electrodialysis. Because these projects have an applied and commercial aspect to them, I have worked closely with WARF, the intellectual property holder of the Univ of Wisconsin-Madison, and the campus Conflict of Interest Cmte; Nutrient Recovery & Upcycling (NRU), LLC, has been set up to patent and commercialize intellectual property from the Barak Lab.

Also of interest:

• 'Causes of impermeability in a local bioretention pond' A report on the effect of road salts from a parking lot washing into retention ponds constructed to remediate the runoff and the resulting impermeability due to sodicity. This is a classic case of the importance of exchangeable sodium percentage and electrolyte level, with the greatest impermeability caused when the salt level is low, only not in semi-arid areas prone to sodicity and salinity problems but the American North Central setting. Results of two capstone projects at the UW-Madison.
  
• 'Fertility, fertilizers and food: in defense of Haber' A 50-minute lecture describing soil fertility and the wise use of fertilizers for food production to feed the current and growing human population, including the revolutionary consequences of synthetic nitrogen fixation. A response to the characterization of Justus von Liebig and Fritz Haber in Michael Pollan's 'In Defense of Food' and part of the UW-Madison Agroecology Fall 2009 Lecture Series and GoBigRead.
  
• Report on struvite crystallization in wastewater treatment plants for nutrient recovery in UW publications: Grow (CALS glossy), Wisconsin Week (official UW newspaper), and University Communications news release and associated photos. Also struvite crystallization on Langmuir monolayers, self-assembled monolayers, and cation exchange membranes as a means to recover and recycle phosphorus from wastewater (municipal sewage and agricultural manure) as a high-value fertilizer material (US Patent No. 7,182,872; issued 27 Feb 2007.)
  
• 
  M.L. Jackson's Soil Chemical Analysis: Advanced Course has been rekeyed from the last (1985) edition and reprinted, with a new introduction and commemorative material. See GoogleBookSearch for sample pages and here for ordering information.
• Experiments with ICE's Polyhedral Model Kit, remanufacturing connectors for more precise assembly of aluminosilicates.
  
  
• ScientificAmerican.com selected The Virtual Museum of Minerals and Molecules as a WINNER of the 2003 Sci/Tech Web Awards. "Each year, our editors review over a thousand web sites and select the 50 they deem the most innovative, creative and valuable as science and technology resources for our readers. This year your web site has been selected as one of the best of its kind."
  
• College press release, "Acid Linked To Soil Aging", 3 Mar 1999
• EDUCAUSE/ASA Medal Award, 26 Oct 1999
  

Research interests:

My background is in soil chemistry of plant nutrients, plant nutrition, and scientific visualization. My current interest is largely nutrient recovery from wastewater, particularly P, N and K, and this is the thrust of my current research projects. Previous projects include:

• Modelling, measurement, and prediction of agricultural liming on millimeter scale, using ion-specific microelectrodes, diffusion cells, and irreversible thermodynamics.
• Evaluation of soil chemical changes as a result of long-term fertility management practices, such as exchangeable base cations, exchangeable acidity, and cation exchangeability, and their reversibility.
• Effect of cultivar and soil treatments on calcium uptake by snapbeans, in order to enhance calcium uptake by humans.
• Investigation into the interaction in the uptake of sulfur and selenium by Allium, as part of evaluating the phytopharmaceutical potential of organo-S and organo-Se compounds.
• Evaluation of wild potato germplasm for efficiency and preference in nitrate/ammonium uptake.
• Iron nutrition of plants--evaluation of iron chelates, their chemistry, and effectiveness in ameliorating iron deficiencies.

Publications:

• Vineyard, DL, A Hicks, KG Karthikeyan, and P Barak. 2021. Life cycle assessment of electrodialysis for sidestream nitrogen recovery in municipal wastewater treatment. Cleaner Environmental Systems 2:10026. doi: 10.1016/j.cesys.2021.100026
• Vineyard, DL, A Hicks, KG Karthikeyan, and P Barak. 2020. Economic analysis of electrodialysis, denitrification, and anammox for nitrogen removal in municipal wastewater treatment. J. Cleaner Production 262:121145. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121145
• Barak, P. 2018. Electrodialysis stacks, systems, and methods for recovering ammonia and monovalent salts from anaerobic digestate. U.S. Patent 10,125,428, 13 Nov 2018. (US Patent Application 20150308001. Filed: 24 Apr 2015, Publication date: 29 Oct 2015).
• Bashar, R, K Gungor, KG Karthikeyan, and P Barak. 2018. Cost effectiveness of phosphorus removal processes in municipal wastewater treatment. Chemosphere 197:280-290.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.12.169
• Barak, P, and S. Kruse. 2017. ADPF: Use Least Squares Polynomial Regression and Statistical Testing to Improve Savitzky-Golay. R package version 3.4.1. Available at CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) under GPL-3 license, https://cran.r-project.org/package=ADPF.
• Obear, GR, P Barak, and DJ Soldat. 2016. Soil inorganic carbon accumulation in sand putting green soils II: Acid–base relationships as affected by water chemistry and nitrogen source. Crop Sci 56:1-11. doi: 10.2135/cropsci2015.06.0342
• Rosanoff, A, E Capron, P Barak, B Mathews and F Nielsen. 2015. Edible plant tissue and soil calcium:magnesium ratios: Data too sparse to assess implications for human health. Crop & Pasture Sci 66:1265–1277.http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/CP15085
• Barak, P. 2013. Phosphate recovery from acid phase anaerobic digesters. U.S. Patent No. 8,568,590, rights assigned to inventor. (follows U.S. Patent Appl. No. 20100282674, Barak, 2010.)
• Melby, E.S., D.J. Soldat, and P. Barak. 2013. Preferential soil sorption of oxygen-18 labeled phosphate. Comm Soil Sci Pl Anal 44:2371-2377. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00103624.2013.800100.
• Melby, E.S., D.J. Soldat, and P. Barak. 2013. Biological decay of ¹⁸O-labeled phosphate in soils. Soil Biol Biochem 63:124-128. doi: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.020
• Melby, E.S., D.J. Soldat, and P. Barak. 2011. Synthesis and detection of oxygen-18 labeled phosphate. PLoS One 6(4): e18420; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018420
• Avila-Segura, M, P. Barak, J. Hedtcke and J.L. Posner. 2011. Nutrient and alkalinity removal by corn grain, stover and cob harvest in Upper Midwest USA. Biomass and Bioenergy 35:1190-1195; doi: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.12.010.
• Soldat, D.J., P. Barak, and B.J. Lepore. 2009. Microscale colorimetric analysis using a desktop scanner and automated digital image analysis. J. Chem. Educ. 86:617-620 (plus 6 pp. supplemental online material and AnalyzeMicroplateStatistics ImageJ macro)
• Lepore, B.J., and P. Barak. 2009. A colorimetric microwell method for determining bromide concentrations. Soil Sci Soc. Am. J. 73:1130-1136; doi:10.2136/sssaj2007.0226 .
• Barak, P., M.E. Tabanpour, M. Avila-Segura, J.M. Meyer. 2007. Struvite Crystallization. US Patent No. 7,182,872; rights assigned to WARF.)
• Barak, P., and E.A. Nater. 2005. The Virtual Museum of Minerals and Molecules: Molecular visualization in a virtual hands-on museum. J. Nat. Resour. Life Sci. Educ. 34:67-71. [html]
• Avila-Segura, M., J.W. Lyne, J.M. Meyer, and P. Barak. 2004. Rapid spectrophotometric analysis of soil phosphorus with a microplate reader. Comm. Soil Sci. Pl. Anal. 35:547–557.
• Grunwald, S., and P. Barak. 2003. 3D geographic reconstruction and visualization techniques applied to land resource management. Trans. GIS 7(2):231-241.
• Grunwald, S., and P. Barak. 2002. The use of VRML for virtual soil landscape modeling. System Analysis Modelling Simulation (SAMS) 41:755-776.
• Grunwald S., P. Barak, and D.J. Rooney. 2001. Web-based virtual models for the earth science community. ASAE International Meeting in Sacramento, CA, July 29-August 1, 2001; Paper No. 013029. (pdf)
• Orvis, K.S., I.L. Goldman, and P. Barak. 2001. Excess sulfate supply and onion-induced human antiplatelet activity. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. 164:457-462
• Grunwald, S., and P. Barak. 2001. Virtual reality modeling in earth sciences. p. 216-221. In: C. Landauer and K.L. Bellman. (ed.) The Proceedings of the International Conference on Simulation and Multimedia in Engineering Education & Virtual Worlds and Simulation. Soc. Modeling and Simulation International, San Diego, CA. [ISBN:1-56555-224-5; Western MultiConference on Computer Simulation. Phoenix, AZ, 7-11 Jan 2001] (illustrations at https://www.soils.wisc.edu/facstaff/barak/wmc2001/).
• Sherman, L.A., and P. Barak. 2000. The solubility and dissolution kinetics of dolomite [CaMg(CO₃)₂] in Ca-Mg-HCO₃/CO₃ solutions at 25°C and 0.1 MPa carbon dioxide. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 64:1959-1968.
• Grunwald, S., P. Barak, K. McSweeney, and B. Lowery. 2000. Soil landscape models at different scales portrayed in Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). Soil Sci. 165:598-615.
• Mafongoya, P.L., P. Barak, J.D. Reed. 2000. Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus mineralization of tree leaves and manure. Biol. Fert. Soils 30:298-305.
• Starr, G.C., P. Barak, B. Lowery, and M. Avila-Segura. 2000. Soil particle concentrations and size analysis using a dielectric method. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 64:858-866.
• Barak, P., B.O. Jobe, A. Krueger, L.A. Peterson, and D.A. Laird. 1997. Effects of long-term soil acidification due to agricultural inputs in Wisconsin. Plant and Soil197:61-69.
• Hernández-Apaolaza, L., P. Barak, and J.J. Lucena. 1997. Chromatographic determination of commercial Fe(III)-chelates of EDTA, EDDHA and EDDHMA. J. Chromatogr. A 789:453-460.
• Barak, P., and I.L. Goldman. 1997. Antagonistic relationship between selenate and sulfate uptake in onion (Allium cepa): Implications for the production of organosulfur and organoselenium compounds in plants. J. Agric. Food Chem. 45:1290-1294.
• Miglioranza, E., P. Barak, K. Kmiecik, and J. Nienhuis. 1997. Comparison of soil and genotypic effects on calcium content of snap bean pods. HortScience 32:68-70.
• Liu, Y.-J., D.A. Laird, and P. Barak. 1997. Release and fixation of NH₄ and K under long-term fertility management. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 60:310-314.
• Cihacek, L.J., W.L. Anderson, and P. Barak. 1996. Linkages between soil quality and plant, animal and human health. p. 9-23. In J.W. Doran and A.J. Jones (ed.) Methods for Assessment of Soil Quality. SSSA Spec. Publ. No. 49, Madison, WI.
• Barak, P., C.A. Seybold, and K. McSweeney. 1996. Self-similitude and fractal dimension of sand grains by computer-assisted image analysis. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 60:72-76.
• Barak, P., L.A. Sherman, and B.O. Jobe. 1996. Comments on "Design and construction of a personal-computer-based automatic titrator". Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 60:630.
• Barak, P., Smith, J.D., Krueger, A.R., and Peterson, L.A. 1996. Measurement of short-term nutrient uptake rates in cranberry by aeroponics. Plant, Cell, and Environ. 19:237-242.
• Lucena, J.J., P. Barak, and L. Hernández-Apaolaza. 1996. Isocratic ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of various iron(III) chelates. J. Chrom. A.727:253-264.
• Barak, P. 1995. Smoothing and differentiation by an adaptive-degree polynomial filter. Anal. Chem. 67:2758-2762
• Barak, P., and P.A. Helmke. 1993. "The chemistry of zinc" pp. 1-13. in: A. Robson (ed.) Zinc in Soils and Plant. Proc., Internat. Symp. on "Zinc in Soils and Plants", Perth, Australia. Kluewer Acad. Press, Dordrecht.
• Welhouse, G., P. Barak, and W.F. Bleam. 1993. Dimerization constants of atrazine and CF₃-labeled atrazine. J. Phys. Chem. 97:11583-11589.
• Barak, P. and Y. Chen. 1992. Equivalent radii of humic macromolecules from acid-base titration. Soil Sci. 152:184-195.
• Bouabid, R., E.A. Nater, and P. Barak. 1992. Measurement of pore size distribution in a lamellar Bt horizon by epifluorescence microscopy and image analysis. Geoderma 53:309-328.
• Hadas, A., M. Sofer, J.A.E. Molina, P. Barak, and C.E. Clapp. 1992. Assimilation of nitrogen by soil microbial population: NH₄ vs. organic N. Soil Biol. Biochem. 24:137- 143.
• Laird, D.A., P. Barak, E.A. Nater, and R.H. Dowdy. 1991. Chemistry of smectitic and illitic phases in interlayered soil smectite. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 55:1499-1504.
• Baruch, E., D. Lichtenberg, P. Barak, and S. Nir. 1991. Calcium binding to bile salts. Chem. Phys. Lipids 57:17-27.
• Barak, P., Y. Coquet, T. Halbach, and J.A.E. Molina. 1991. Evaluation of the biodegradability of polyhydroxybutyrate(co-hydroxyvalerate) and starch-incorporated polyethylene plastic films in soils. J. Environ. Qual. 20:173-179.
• Barak, P., J.A.E. Molina, A. Hadas, and C.E. Clapp. 1990. Mineralization of amino acids and evidence of direct assimilation of organic nitrogen. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 54:769-774.
• Barak, P., J.A.E. Molina, A. Hadas, and C.E. Clapp. 1990. Optimization of an ecological model with the Marquardt algorithm. Ecol. Modelling 51:251-263.
• Barak, P. 1990. SPECIES: A spreadsheet program for modeling speciation of soil solution. J. Agron. Educ. 19:44-46. [Download software!]
• Barak, P. 1989. Double layer theory prediction of Al-Ca exchange on clay and soil. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 133:479-490.

Older publications.

Barak's Virtual Poster Gallery

Courses Taught:

• General Soil Science, Soils 301 (undergrad; course coordinator, Fall 2006-2009; co-instructor, Fall 2006-2019)
  
• Plant Nutrition Management, Soils/Hort/Agron 326 (undergrad), 3 cr (Spring semester)
• Mineral Nutrition of Plants, Soils/Hort/Bot 626 (grad), 3 cr (with Edgar Spalding, Botany; alternate years, next: Fall 2019.)
• Issues in Agriculture, Environment and Life Sciences, InterAg 155 (freshman seminar; instructor/mentor; Fall semester, annually)
  
• Graduate Seminar, Soils 728 (Spring & Fall; 2008, 2019)
• Soils and Environmental Quality, Soils/EnvSt 324, 3 cr (on-line section, Fall 2005, Summer 2009, Summer 2010)
• Special Topics: Soil Mineralogy, SoilSci 699 (grad), 3 cr (with Ed Nater, Univ of Minnesota; Spring '01.)

Graduate Students:

Leslie Sherman (PhD): Completed degree, 17 Apr 1997 Kang Xia (PhD; Dr. Philip Helmke, coadvisor): Completed degree, Nov 1996 Babou Jobe (MSc): Completed degree, 18 Jan 1996 Gulden Zont (MSc): Completed degree, Aug 1997 Mauricio Avila (PhD) Completed MSc degree, May 1999 DD Levine (MSc) Completed MSc degree, June 2000 Jim Lyne (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Aug 2002 Mauricio Avila (PhD) Completed PhD degree, May 2004 Juli Meyer (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Aug 2004 Merin Abraham (MSc)Completed MSc degree, Civil Environ Engineering, Aug 2008 Amanda Boyce (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Aug 2010 JoonHe Lee (MSc; Dr. Mark Powell, coadvisor) Completed MSc degree, Apr 2012 Tyler Anderson (MSc)Completed MSc degree, Aug 2015 Amanda Jensen (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Jul 2018 Dustin Sawyer (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Jan 2019 Donnie Vineyard (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Civil Environ Engineering, Jul 2019 Laura Bybee (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Aug 2019 Jacob Kruse (MSc) Completed MSc degree, Jun 2020 Donnie Vineyard (PhD) ...Civil Environ Engineering, in progress

Link to Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Last modified 25 May 2021 by Phillip Barak.