Water & Wastewater Treatment

Organised by Supported by expert speakers include Rachel Dyson Programme Manager - FOG/ Unflushables Anglian Water Martin Perrin Strategic Waste Planning Manager Thames Water Catherine Harrold Head of Water Supply Defra Simon Chadwick Wastewater Services Director United Utilities Paul Hickey Head of Land and Water Quality Environment Agency Simon Cocks Wastewater Services Director Severn Trent Water Brian Smith Drainage Strategy Manager Yorkshire Water Steve Wilson Director of Wastewater Services Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water Follow us @WWtlive using #wastewater Book BeF t-wastewater.net WWT's Wastewater infrastructure & networks conference is a must-attend event for all wastewater service providers looking to optimise existing assets. attend this one-day conference to: Find new ways to improve your flood risk management and asset resilience strategy Understand where Thames Water is taking different approaches in AMP6 Discuss strategies for optimal wastewater network management, including integrated approaches, with your peers Gain first-hand insight into the sewer pollution reduction transformation in Wales Hear how Anglian Water is communicating with customers and working with stakeholders to reduce FOG in the network Explore the vision of a future Smart wastewater network Charity partner BOOK NOW at www.WWT-wastewater.net www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | APRIL 2014 | 35 In the know A new wastewater treatment process using microalgae enables phosphorous and nitrogen to be removed in darkness, say researchers at the University of Cadiz (UC). Urban wastewaters have high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous that must be removed before discharge to surface waters. Many efficient procedures for removing these nutrients exist, but present drawbacks in terms of cost, complexity, and carbon footprint. RESEARCH ROUND UP Pilgrimages identified as 'superbug' source Pilgrimages to the Ganges have been identified as a cause of antibiotic-resist- ance by researchers from Newcastle University, UK, and the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Sampling water and sediments along the Up- per Ganges River in India, they found that in May and June, when hundreds of thousands of visitors travel to Rishikesh and Haridwar, levels of resistance genes that lead to 'superbugs' were about 60 times greater than other times. Publishing their findings in Environmental Science & Technology, the team say Algae treatment that works in the dark G o v e r n m e n t - f u n d e d research undertaken by Professor José Vargas-Ma- chuca's team has focussed on photo-biotreatment of wastewaters with microal- gae, a biotechnological pro- cess that needs light to take place. Ideally, shallow reac- tors are used to enable light to reach the microalgae, but this means a large physical footprint is required. In practice, the most common photo-bioreactors used have longer light paths and while this means they cost less, lower biomass is achieved, which reduces the potential for harvesting for fuel or fertilizer. However, the UC re- searchers observed that microalgae, as with other organisms, use part of what they assimilate to grow, while storing the rest. "Microalgae consume all the nitrogen and phosphorous until the nutrients disappear from the wastewaters, and because microalgae start to grow before the growth of biomass takes place, this explains why microalgae are internally saturated with these elements. Microalgae grow later at the expense of these reserves," said Profes- sor Vargas-Machuca. The researchers conduct- ed various experiments and found that microalgae as- similated nitrogen and phos- phorous in darkness too. "Light was needed for algae to grow, but not to assimi- late the nutrients, so we can take advantage of this." ● 36 Getting to grips: motor maintenance and repair ● 39 Technically speaking: flooded sewerage ● 43 Skilling up: workforce development ● 44 Nuts & Bolts: products, solutions and services it is important to protect people visiting and living at these sites. Professor David Graham, an environmental engineer based at Newcastle Univer- sity said, "If we can stem the spread of such antibiot- ic resistant genes locally – possibly through improved sanitation and waste treat- ment - we have a better chance of limiting their spread on larger scales, creating global solutions by solving local problems." Robotic construction crew needs no foreman Inspired by termites, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering & Ap- plied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Bio- logically Inspired Engineer- ing at Harvard University has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no su- pervisor and no communi- cation - just simple robots that cooperate by modify- ing their environment. The TERMES robots can build towers, castles, and pyramids out of foam bricks, autonomously build- ing themselves staircases to reach the higher levels. In the future, the researchers say, similar robots could lay sandbags in advance of a flood. The results of the four- year project were published in Science, 14 February. INNOVATION HUB Innovation shipment leaves for India Two shipping containers packed with innovative water treatment technologies set sail to India from Scotland on February 24. Dryden Aqua's Activated Filter Media filtration systems, Trustwater's electrochemical disinfection system and AGM Communication & Control's online monitoring and control system will be shipped overland to a small village in the Murshidabad region of India, approximately 100km from Kolkata. The shipment relates to a £1.8 Europe-India collaborative research project, ECO-India, which is focused on developing innovative and sustainable approaches for producing potable water at community level. Co-funded by the EC's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and the Indian Department of Science & Technology (DST), the three-year ECO-India project will run until August 2015. Aidan Quinn, the co-ordinator of the EU consortium said: "As the project progresses, ECO-India will see EU expertise complement existing water technologies in India with the ultimate aim of bringing water quality up to desirable standards. A key focus will also be adapting these technologies for a harsh climate in a rural location representing key industrial innovation that will be of great benefit for widespread global deployment of these technologies." For the full story, visit WWTonline.co.uk. 1.7M EU contribution in Euros towards the FP7 consortium 2.2M Total cost in Euros of the ECO India project STATS 90% of rural house- holds in India who are entirely dependent on untreated surface or ground- water. €94B Anticipated value of the market for energy efficient systems for advanced drinking water treatment

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