Treatment Technologies for Cities of the Future - Access Water - Access Water. By Dr.
Glen Daigger, International Water Association President and CH2M HILL Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Daigger will be giving the Water Convention Keynote Plenary during Singapore International Water Week on 3 July at 9:00am. Learn more about all of CH2M HILL’s SIWW presentations and activities. This week I am privileged to serve as one of the four keynote speakers for the Water Convention (technical conference) portion of the Singapore International Water Week (SIWW). Preparing this presentation helped me to understand and reinforce some important points. First, technologies come in a lot of “shapes and sizes.” Second, we are not yet using these highly effective and beneficial technologies as widely as we should be. Third, it’s not just about the technologies we use but how we put them together as systems. Bottom line is that it’s a wonderful time to be in the water profession, but only if we seize the opportunities in front of us!
Dr. Advanced Water Treatment Technologies. Making Water Treatment Plants Sustainable. P3 Research Project Search Each year millions of tons of sludge laden with iron -the byproduct of drinking water treatment- are transported and deposited into landfills.
While this practice is mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is the accepted industry standard for safe sludge disposal, it is expensive. In fact, sludge disposal costs the water-treatment industry millions of dollars per year. Meanwhile, half way around the world, an environmental health disaster has been unfolding over the past two decades: some tens of millions of people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, are routinely exposed to drinking water contaminated with high levels of arsenic. A team of students from Lehigh University addressed these two seemingly distant issues as part of the U.S. At its simplest, water treatment is a filtration process. Many different chemicals can act as coagulants in water treatment, but the most prevalent are iron and aluminum.
A New Way To Clean Up Dirty Water, And Generate Power In The Process. Today’s wastewater treatment plants often generate water that’s clean enough to drink.
But the treatment process is power-intensive--wastewater treatment plants are often the biggest energy-suckers found in cities--and it’s dirty, too. Chlorine disinfection technology kills bacteria using carcinogenic chemicals, while ultraviolet disinfection uses "ungodly amounts of energy and electricity," according to Greg Ryan, cofounder and CEO of Pasteurization Technology Group (PTG). PTG, a San Leandro, Calif. -based startup, just raised $1 million from EIC Ventures (the company has raised a little under $2 million in total) for an alternative: a treatment plant that pasteurizes water--raising its temperature to 180 degrees Fahrenheit--using waste heat from an electricity generator that runs on biogas produced by a sewage digester (which breaks down all the solid sewage found in the wastewater it’s then pastuerizing). Still, municipalities will likely be some of PTG’s biggest customers. Saving Water, Seeing Green: Water Treatment Plant Strives for Sustainability.
SUSTAINABILITY AND THE URBAN WATER SYSTEM. The Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy (ISTP) at Murdoch University was established in 1988 to foster critical understanding of the roles and effects of science and technology for the benefit of all sectors of society.
The ISTP has always been dedicated to interdisciplinary and collaborative research to develop innovative solutions to a range of global, national and local sustainability challenges. An international research reputation was built mainly around the topics of sustainability, urbanization and cities. After restructuring in 2008, the ISTP sat as a separate research unit within the School of Sustainability until January 2011, when it and the former School, were moved into the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.
In July 2011, the ISTP (Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy) was re-named the Institute for Social Sustainability (ISS). Quick links quick-links. Giving waste water the power to clean itself. Microbial reverse-electrodialysis cell.
(A) Main components of the microbial reverse electrodialysis cell (MRC), showing the membrane stack between the electrodes, the reference electrodes and the circuit containing a load (resistor). (C) Expanded view of the membrane stack showing flow path of the high (HC) and low (LC) concentrate solutions of ammonium bicarbonate. (Credit: Roland D. Cusick et al. /Science) A technique that combines two novel forms of renewable energy — one relying on bacteria and the other on salt water — generates more electricity than either one alone and cleans waste water at the same time.
The Pennsylvania State University researchers show that this configuration can achieve maximum power densities of 3 watts per meter squared, much higher than either technology can achieve on its own. One method for converting this energy to a useable form is to use microbial fuel cells (MFC). Ref.: Cusick, R.