POUL DUE JENSEN FOUNDATION WATER A global paradigm shift in wastewater treatment Two professors, Bruce Rittmann and Mark van Loosdrecht received the 2018 Stockholm Water Prize for revolutionising water and wastewater treatment. Their pioneering research and innovations have led to a new generation of energy-efficient water treatment processes that can effectively extract nutrients and other chemicals – both valuable and harmful – from wastewater. Bruce Rittmann and Mark van Loosdrecht Photo: Mikael Ullén/ Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) “With current technology, you can already be energy neutral, and there is a lot of research on how to become energy positive. Especially in developing countries with unstable electricity supply and limited access to funding, this is very important. If we could build a wastewater plant that is self-sufficient in energy, that would make sewage plants feasible in many more places.“ - Mark van Loosdrecht, Professor in Environmental Biotechnology at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Natural microorganisms clean wastewater “We can protect the environment and human health, and, at the same time, regenerate real value for society” – Bruce Rittmann, Regents’ Professor of Environmental Engineering and Di- rector of the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, USA. Membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR) is a technology that Dr. Rittmann invented. It uses naturally occurring microorganisms to remove contaminants such as perchlorate and tricloroethene from water, and has been commercialised. Professor Rittmann has chaired the Program Committee of the Leading Edge Technology Conference of the International Water Association, where he has worked together with Professor van Loosdrecht. He is a fellow of the International Water Association, National Academy of Inventors, and American Association for the Advancement of Science; and he is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Wastewater plants produce energy “We have combined scientific achievements in the field of microbial ecology and process engineering with an applied research line, which has led to the development of new processes that are now used in practice in wastewater treatment.” - Mark van Loosdrecht Professor van Loosdrecht’s research has led to the quite widely used Anammox and Nereda technologies for wastewater treatment. • The Anammox process is a resource-efficient way to remove nitrogen 24
Download PDF file
Cookie policy