This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skodowska-Curie grant agreement No 676070
Fellows from SuPER-W network will be attending International water association's resource recovery conference in Venice (IWARR2019) Sep 8th to 12th. On Sunday 8th, SuPER-W holds the preconference workshop "SuPER-W: Resource Recovery from wastewater: emerging technologies & concepts". See flyer here.
From July 04th to 19th, the seventh network training event of SuPER-W took place in Gent, Belgium. The main agenda of the training included evaluating the research progress of the ESRs research and improving their complementary skills. Prof. Gijs Du Laing, the coordinator of SuPER-W project from Gent university, hosted this successful two-week event.
Capture research center, of which several Super-W fellows are a member, is now a finalist in the REGIOSTARS award 2019. CAPTURE is an interdisciplinary collaboration between several young and dynamic professors from 3 different faculties from Ghent University. CAPTURE proposes an integrated approach based on three pillars:
Clustering of expertise, infrastructure and stakeholders in thematic pipelines, developing solutions from waste to resource, to final application
On the 22nd and 23rd of October 2019 the first CAPTURE conference will take place in Ghent. With this two day conference we are aiming to explore and discuss opportunities and strengths that CAPTURE can offer towards a more sustainable and circular economy. The CAPTURE projects converge in three pipelines, named ‘CO2 to product’, ‘water ‘fit for use’’ and ‘plastics to resource’.
The project has started on March 1st, 2016 and will run over a period of four years. The programme offers early-stage researchers (ESRs) the opportunity to join established research teams, improve their research skills, and enhance their career prospects.
Our network comprises 5 academic partner institutions and 12 non-academic partners from different European countries, including industrial partners involved in technology development, SMEs focused on consultancy/engineering, a service provider, a government agency, and professional network organisations.
It combines local expert training at each academic and non-academic partner organisation, a network-wide secondment scheme, internships and an intense series of network-wide training sessions, workshops and seminars.
All fellowships are granted. No more subscriptions allowed.
The mini symposium: Bridging the gap between membrane modelling and applications will take place at Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Gent university on Jan. 9th 2019.
Registration to the symposium is free but mandatory. For more info please contact ir. Wouter Naessens.
Matthias Wessling, RWTH Professor and part of the SuPER-W network is the leibniz prize winner 2019. Like all of the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft in the programme of excellent people, the membrane expert receives a research prize of 2,5 Millions of euros. " we are very excited about the high recognition for this outstanding scientist. Matthias Wessling is considered one of the most productive and influential experts for and and polymerforschung ", says RWTH Aachen Rector Ulrich Rüdiger. " his work contributes significantly to the fact that the RWTH and their partners are on their way to the international top of membrane research."
Wessling is a member of the chair of chemical engineering in Aachen (AVT), and the Alexander Von Humboldt Professor is a member of the scientific leadership of the DWI-Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien.
Congratulations, Professor Wessling!
From November 12 to 16, the fifth Network Training Event of SuPER-W took place in Prague, Czech Republic. The theme of this event was “Business case development in the field of resource recovery, energy and product from wastewater”. Prof. Jan Bartacek, Prof. Pavel Jeníček, and Dr. Lucie Pokorná, partners from University of Chemistry and Technology Prague (VSCHT Prague), organized this successful five-day event.
During the first two days of the event, the ESRs gave an overview of their research and training progress. Thanks to the consortium partners and external expert Prof. Eric D. van Hullebusch, the ESRs received practical questions and constructive comments that are very much appreciated and are considered essential for future development of their projects. Updates on communication and dissemination activities followed, in which the ESRs presented their progress on outreach activities. Besides continuous updating of the website and printing of t-shirts and hoodies with the SuPER-W logo on, three additional outreach projects targeting different audiences were set up by SuPER-W ESRs to increase public awareness on the importance of resource recovery from wastewater. These are (1) preparation of an educational tool in the form of a video for teenagers (14-18 years of age) regarding different wastewater treatment technologies; (2) development of a tool to teach pupils within the age range of 11-14 years about environmental technology with special focus on wastewater treatment and wastewater resource recovery; and (3) preparation of a chapter of reuse of irrigation water in an open online course (MOOC) regarding resource recovery from wastewater. More information about these projects will be available soon at the website. The second day ended with a Prague city tour guided by Prof. Bartacek himself, followed by a relaxing network dinner.
The 6th workshop of the program, related to business case development, started with a lecture from Dr. Ondřej Beneš, the Commercial Director of Veolia Water Czech Republic. It was very inspiring and helpful to get an overview of water management and regulations in Czech Republic and in EU in general. Discussions about project management in the water sector followed, where Dr. Beneš emphasized the essentials for a business project to succeed. To supplement the previous lectures, Petr Horecký of Biothane presented business cases demonstrating successful research to full-scale deployment. Michal Zálešák, the founder of Prague Start-up Centre, also shared his experiences and tips in start-up business cases. Jan Marek of Deloitte shared his expertise in managing risks associated with business cases.
To wrap up the three-day workshop on business case development, the ESRs were divided into groups to work on different business cases regarding water industry macro trends and projects related to climate change and human factors. Being equipped with the knowledge gained from all the speakers, they were able to defend the business cases they presented to the jury. The event was capped off with a visit to the historical facility (now a museum) of Old Prague’s wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Bubeneč, which is one of the firsts of its kind in continental Europe. This iconic WWTP combines aesthetics with functionality to an epic level for the time. This visit encourages the ESRs to follow their predecessors’ footprint to become real water heroes of our time. It was an intensive, but fruitful week for the ESRs and all participants. The next SuPER-W training event will take place in Gent, Belgium in July 2019.
Our Fellow colleague, ESR Marco Hartl, from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech published his first peer-reviewed journal article in the Science of total environment journal. the abstract of the paper reads:
" Microbial fuel cells implemented in constructed wetlands (CW-MFCs), albeit a relatively new technology still under study, have shown to improve treatment efficiency of urban wastewater. So far the vast majority of CW-MFC systems investigated were designed as lab-scale systems working under rather unrealistic hydraulic conditions using synthetic wastewater. The main objective of this work was to quantify CW-MFCs performance operated under different conditions in a more realistic setup using meso-scale systems with horizontal flow fed with real urban wastewater. Operational conditions tested were organic loading rate (4.9 ± 1.6, 6.7 ± 1.4 and 13.6 ± 3.2 g COD/m2·day) and hydraulic regime (continuous vs. intermittent feeding) as well as different electrical connections: CW control (conventional CW without electrodes), open-circuit CW-MFC (external circuit between anode and cathode not connected) and closed-circuit CW-MFC (external circuit connected).
Eight horizontal subsurface flow CWs were operated for about four months. Each wetland consisted of a PVC reservoir of 0.193 m2 filled with 4/8 mm granitic riverine gravel (wetted depth 25 cm). All wetlands had intermediate sampling points for gravel and interstitial liquid sampling. The CW-MFCs were designed as three MFCs incorporated one after the other along the flow path of the CWs. Anodes consisted of gravel with an incorporated current collector (stainless steel mesh) and the cathode consisted of a graphite felt layer. Electrodes of closed-circuit CW-MFC systems were connected externally over a 220 Ω resistance.
Results showed no significant differences between tested organic loading rates, hydraulic regimes or electrical connections, however, on average, systems operated in closed-circuit CW-MFC mode under continuous flow outperformed the other experimental conditions. Closed-circuit CW-MFC compared to conventional CW control systems showed around 5% and 22% higher COD and ammonium removal, respectively. Correspondingly, overall bacteria activity, as measured by the fluorescein diacetate technique, was higher (4% to 34%) in closed-circuit systems when compared to CW control systems."
Read the complete version here.
If you are less than 35 years old and want to help set the Water Agenda for 2030/2050 and participate in a global network of enthusiastic Young Water Professionals (#YWPs), then please make sure to register now for the #EmergingWaterLeaders forum, part of the exciting programme at the upcoming IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition 2018 in Tokyo.
The forum is open to young and emerging leaders (aged 35 and below) and senior professionals to discuss questions posed to us by three Congress Keynote speakers that are of outmost importance for the 2030/2050 agendas and beyond. The selected topics that will be addressed are:
o Digital Water
o Climate Resilience
o Healthy Liveable cities
We will be going through a series of exercises based on problem-solving tools to unpack the questions into manageable and prioritised components, and will put forward our findings at the Congress Closing Ceremony, as well as present this to the wider IWA network in a series of follow-up communications.
Join us and engage with young and invited senior professionals by registering online at: www.worldwatercongress.org/emerging-water-leaders-forum
Euromembrane 2018, the main membrane science event in Europe, was held in Valencia June 9th to 13th. The cinference was organized by EMS-European membrane society and hosted by Polytechnique University of Valencia and comprised of more than 250 oral presentations in 5 parallel sessions and 500 posters. From SuPER-W network, PaInT group from Ghent university contributed with several talks and posters, including a keynote speech from Dr. ir. Arnout D'Haese on negative rejection of uncharged solutes in forward osmosis membranes. Also, ESR 07, Morez Jafari from TUDelft presented his latest findings on Biofilm compression under dead-end ultrafiltration.
As part of the IMPROVED project, a workshop titled: "From waste streams towards the process water" will be held at BASF site at Antwerp. IMPROVED is a european reginal (Interreg) project aimed at recycling industrial waters to high quality process water. The workshop takes place on June 18th and lectures will be delivered in English. The particle and interfacial technology group of Ghent university, one of the SuPERW partners, is also affiliated with the IMPROVED project.
you can register for free at this workshop before June 11th. Please find the addiotional information here.
The first European water tech week will be held in Leeuwarden, the United Nations Innovating City for water technology, on September 24th to 27th. The annual Wetsus congress and WaterLink, by Water Alliance, are integrated to bring representatives from governments, policy makers, universities and industry together.
Click here to find complementary information and register.
The Belgian membrane group co-organises its 16th poster day and symposium with the help of Dutch and German membrane Association (NMG - DGMT). The event takes place on June 5th 2018 at Leuven and aims at providing latest reports on the progress on membrane research and development in laboratory and industrial level.
From the SuPER-W network, Professor Ingmar Nopens will give a lecture at the event on 'How advanced modelling accelerates the design of current and next generation membrane applications'. Furthermore, our fellow ESR Mohammad Kazemabad is going to present a poster on 'Towards cation selective NF membranes: inclusion of crownethers in layer by layer polyelectrolyte membranes'.
For additional info check out here.
British Water - Water & The Circular Economy Conference will be held in Liverpool on June 14th. Students affiliated with SuPER-W will have a special student discount.
check out the complementry data here.
