A new way of tracking how sewage sludge flows during thermal treatment could help engineers design better wastewater treatment plants and boost production of biogas. Researchers at RMIT University demonstrated how the flow behaviour of sludge can be used as a tool to gauge how quickly organic matter is dissolving at high temperatures, paving the way for online monitoring of process performance. Traditional methods of assessing the performance of thermal treatment require time-consuming sampling ...

In Singapore, researchers are planning to build a pilot membrane filtration plant to treat industrial wastewater. Accordingto The Chemical Engineer, the plant will allow a semiconductor company to reduce liquid waste by more than 90% and allow it to recover metals from treated water which could then be reused and sold. The pilot plant will use a novel water treatment system that employs a novel type of hollow-fibre membrane (HFM) invented by Neal Chung, Professor at the National University of S...

In a study from Science Advances, scientists study how tracking antibiotic-resistant germs in raw sewage. A study highlights how tracking antibiotic-resistance genes in bacteria found in urban wastewater treatment plants could help scientists and public health officials get an accurate picture of resistance in a city. According to NPR, the team of European scientists validated the approach by using it to identify trends in antibiotic use and resistance across Europe. Programs like the National ...

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers have built a pilot plant to test the technology that uses solar or waste heat to purify water through a membrane. Professor Graeme Millar said the process had been developed over four years in partnership with Japanese researchers. “I’ll give you an analogy: if you have a shower in the morning, you’ll see all the steam build up and you’ll then see it condense on your cold mirror in the bathroom — that condensed w...

A report released by the Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention has listed countries where it is unsafe for tourists to drink tap water. India also features in the list of 187 countries. The data was compiled by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States of America’s premier national health protection agency. Through the means of infographics, the report have specified countries around the world where it is safe for tourists to drink tapnwater and countries whe...

A group of scientists in India have come up with a new process which promises to help utilise black carbon soot – a major air pollutant – for treating industrial waste containing highly poisonous organic dyes. The scientists have developed two techniques: one to convert black soot into graphene nanosheets, and the second to utilise the nanosheets to remove organic dyes such as crystal violet, rhodamine B, and methylene blue from industrial waste. Black carbon soot is emitted from gas...

A consultant with the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) Vinayak Parkhi has worked to find solutions tothe hundreds of litres of water going down the drains. He eventually developed a model that can save about 20% of thewater used in any multi-storeyed building. The model uses the principles of recycling and reducing to make optimum use of water. We are all too aware of the water shortage in Pune and other parts of India. And even in this scarcity, we don’t recycle water....