Sustainable water and wastewater processing

Our activities focus on addressing the global water-energy nexus challenges including developing innovative methods for sustainable desalination, wastewater processing and water recycling to provide clean water to address the rising global pressure for fresh water supply, energy recovery from wet waste or wastewater, and wastewater treatment process synthesis and real-time optimisation and control.

Research areas

Past work

Facilities

Pilot scale water and wastewater treatment and biomass processing

  • FO/NF/RO membrane filtration systems
  • 20kHz horn capable of flow through, treatment at high pressure and temperature for biomass.

Techno-economic and life cycle assessment

  • SimaPro
  • SuperPro Designer.

Analysis of scaling/precipitation

  • PHREEQC program.

Techno-economic and real-time optimisation

  • General algebraic modeling system (GAMS).

Bioreactor modelling

  • COMSOL software
  • MATLAB platform.

Energy labs

  • Bench top water-splitting setup for hydrogen production
  • Microbial electrosynthesis system (MES) for waste-water treatment.

Analytical instruments

  • Inductively coupled plasma - optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES)
  • Nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA)
  • Total organic carbon (TOC)
  • High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
  • Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-VIS)
  • Low light camera
  • Data colour spectrophotometer
  • Potentiostat/galvanostat electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analyser
  • Conductometer.

Bench scale water and wastewater and biomass treatment

  • Hydrothermal carbonisation reactor owned by Antaco
  • UF/NF/RO/FO membrane filtration systems
  • Multifrequency ultrasound processing systems
  • Biological digesters
  • Sludge and waste water treatment.

Projects

Completed projects

Start date: 2014

End date: 2018

Meet the team

Academic staff

Bahman Amini Horri profile image

Dr Bahman Amini Horri

Associate Professor of Energy Materials and Sustainability Fellow at the Institute for Sustainability

Madeleine Bussemaker profile image

Dr Madeleine Bussemaker

Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering

Ralph Chadeesingh profile image

Dr Ralph Chadeesingh

Senior Teaching Fellow in Chemical Process Engineering

Melis S. Duyar profile image

Dr Melis Duyar

Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Process Engineering

Siddharth Gadkari profile image

Dr Siddharth Gadkari

Lecturer in Chemical Process Engineering

Judy Lee profile image

Dr Judy Lee

Reader, Director of Learning and Teaching for Chemical and Process Engineering

Michael Short profile image

Dr Michael Short

Senior Lecturer of Process Systems Engineering

Rex Thorpe profile image

Professor Rex Thorpe

Professor of Chemical Engineering

Dimitrios Tsaoulidis profile image

Dr Dimitrios Tsaoulidis

Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering

Postgraduate research students

Read completed dissertations by our past students:

Meshkat Dolat profile image

Meshkat Dolat

Project: Optimisation and system design for bespoke dual function materials for direct air carbon capture and utilisation

Ros Fomin

Project: Fouling behaviour of a membrane bioreactor system and the impact of different cleaning operations

Cyril Hachemi

Project: Comprehensive understanding of the impact of microplastics on membrane bioreactors

Mustapha Hamdan

Postgraduate Research Student

Junbin Huang

Project: CO2 reduction through microbial electrolysis system and chemicals upgrading

Om Sabnis

MSc summer researcher

Anna Salvian profile image

Anna Salvian

Project: Development of microbial self-powered biosensor for water quality monitoring

Tim Sidnell profile image

Dr Tim Sidnell

Project: Ultrasonic degradation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances

Maano Tshimange

Project: Mining of phosphorus in wastewater using forward-osmosis membrane system

Mehrdad Zare profile image

Dr Mehrdad Zare

Project: Ultrasonic remediation of pharmaceutical emerging contaminants (ECs) in water/wastewater

Find us

Address

School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey
GU2 7XH
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