The ever increasing pressure on water and other resources due to a global growth in population and climate change is driving change in the water industry towards a circular economy approach. It is now widely accepted that wastewater is not just a waste but a resource and it offers great potential to produce clean water for reuse as well as to recover resources such as energy and nutrients. Over the past two decades, the Cranfield Water Science Institute (Cranfield University, UK) has dedicated significant research efforts towards the development and optimisation of novel technologies for sustainable treatment and resource recovery from wastewater. This presentation will focus on new flow sheets developed from this work and in particular report on the development and optimisation of anaerobic membrane reactors, membrane contactors for degas and biogas upgrade as well as ion exchange and algae processes for the removal and recovery of nutrients.
Dr. Marc Pidou is a lecturer in Resource Recovery in the Water Science Institute at Cranfield University, UK. Dr. Pidou's research vision is to scientifically underpin the innovation and development of technologies to deliver a step-change in the efficacy of wastewater treatment and resource recovery. Ultimately, the aim is to deliver a paradigm shift in how wastewater is viewed and processed in order to support the development of a more sustainable water sector integrated into a circular economy model. His current research activities are focused on the development and optimisation of technologies for phosphorus and ammonium removal and recovery from wastewater effluents (reactive media, algae, hybrid ion exchange, coagulation, MOFs), tertiary solids removal (cloth media filter, granular media filter, membranes), treatment and resource recovery from trade wastes (membranes, anaerobic systems), biogas upgrade (membrane contactors) and water recycling (MBRs, RO and NF membranes).