Bienvenue au laboratoire de recherche du professeur Dwight Houweling
Here are some links to some interesting visualizations:
- Should we remove phosphorus or just divert urine?
- How do we recover resources from sewage?
- What does the biology in wastewater look like?
- What is a softsensor?
Activated sludge
What is activated sludge? Imagine taking the power of nature to purify wastewater in rivers, lakes and ponds and multiply it 100-fold! That's the power of activated sludge. And how do we do it? By retaining the microorganisms that grow on sewage through sedimentation we can keep it in bioreactors using "recycle" or "recirculation" loops. The technology has been around over 100 years...
100 years! So then is there anything left to research in this field? Yes, research on activated sludge is a very active field. We are looking at strategies to promote growth of microorganisms in denser agregates that have better settling properties and unique biological activity. Also, the push towards digitization of wastewater operations means a lot of work to do on development on monitoring techniques, mathematical models and digital twins.
Lagoons
Aerated lagoons are widely used in smaller communities in Canada and around the world. They are appreciated for their low operational complexity and robust treatment. Research on lagoon infrastructure focusses on managing sludge buildup and modelling tools for evaluation of retrofit solutions.
Advanced respirometric techniques and softsensors for biological wastewater treatment
Imagine listening to nature breathe! That's what we can do using respirometric techniques where we measure the oxygen, carbon dioxide and other gases produced by microorganisms as they degrade pollutants in our wastewater. It's fascinating!
In addition to fascinating it's also an important to monitor in real-time the health of your biological process. Respirometry provides a direct means to monitor the biological activity of wastewater treatment infrastructure. Research into advanced respirometric techniques is focussing on coupling results with metagenomics and mathematical modelling to enable digital twins. This type of real-time information unlocks a world of possibilities around process monitoring and optimization.
