Powering ahead with recycled water
The Smart State is set to become a world hub for water recycling research with The University of Queensland’s Advanced Water Management Centre developing an international reputation for excellence in wastewater treatment recycling technology.
The centre’s director, Professor Jurg Keller, intends to consolidate and enhance that standing – a particularly important objective given global climate change.
The centre was formed in 1996 as the Advanced Wastewater Management Centre but the name was recently changed to more closely reflect the scope of the organisation’s research and development activities.
“We research many aspects of water management including recycling and any type of polluted water,” Professor Keller said.
“We’ve focussed on biotechnology, on oxidising pollutants completely.”
As a result, waste water is purified back to potable standards. That’s exemplified by the research undertaken by PhD student Stefano Freguia into producing power from wastewater using microbial fuel cells. The bacteria are tiny and they convert organic compounds like sugar directly into electricity.
At beer maker Foster’s Yatala brewery in south Queensland, sugarconsuming bacteria will be used in a microbial fuel cell to produce electricity as well as purify water.
“Brewery waste water is a particularly good source because it is very biodegradable,” Professor Keller said.
“It’s also highly concentrated, which helps to improve the performance of the cell.”
Professor Keller said he expected the pilot-scale cell to produce up to two kilowatts of power, enough to supply a house, and that the technology could eventually be installed in other Foster’s breweries and the company’s wineries.
“It’s not going to make an enormous amount of power; it’s primarily a wastewater treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity,” he said.
Professor Keller says most wastewater treatment plants, and there are about 2,000 of them in Queensland, have a biological element.
“They’re the world’s largest biotechnology plants and they’ve been going for a very long time – at least as far back as 1914 when the activated sludge process was invented,” he said.
The technology used then is still in use today, although it’s been modified and now achieves a very high effluent quality.
“The centre regards waste water as a resource,” Professor Keller said.
“Domestic waste water is 99.9 per cent pure water – and the nutrients and organic compounds it contains are also a resource of natural fertiliser and bio-energy.”
The centre’s scientists will have a key role in the $50 million Urban Water Security Research Alliance, launched by Premier Peter Beattie in April this year.
The Queensland Government has invested $25 million in the fiveyear program which will develop Australia’s largest urban water research program. Its findings will underpin South-East Queensland’s water recycling project, the third largest such scheme in the world.
Other partners in the alliance are Griffith University and the CSIRO.
The Advanced Water Management Centre has formed alliances with private industry and with international research centres to boost its already powerful knowledge base even further.
Recycling water is a very high priority, Professor Keller said. “We can make Queensland a water recycling world hub,” he said.
“With the climate shifts we’re experiencing, likely due to global warming, a significant part of the world’s water supply is going to come from recycling.”
Website: http://www.awmc.uq.edu.au
Last reviewed 24 July 2007
