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Special Issue “Biochar for the Environmental Wastewater Treatment”

Published 26 January, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

Flyer for SI: Biochar for the Environmental Wastewater Treatment Download

Sahar Dalahmeh, Researcher at our group along with Manfred Lübken is co-editing a special issue in the journal, Applied Sciences published by MDPI. The special issue focuses on “Biochar for the Environmental Wastewater Treatment”. Paper submissions are invited along the following lines:

Filtration systems are, in general, characterized as low cost, easy to operate and they have a low space requirement. Filter material should have, e.g., a large specific surface area, low bulk densities and should be locally available where wastewater treatment is to be installed. Recently, biochar has been demonstrated to be effective in the removal of organic and inorganic constituents, heavy metals or microorganisms from contaminated water. Compared to many other filter materials, biochar has the advantage that it can be produced from locally available biomass and can be used as a soil amendment after wastewater treatment. The aim of this Special Issue is to discuss both the potential and limits of biochar as a filter material for wastewater treatment.

MSc Project on piloting urine drying in Finland

Published 24 January, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

My name is Caroline Karlsson and I am a Masters student in Environmental and Water Engineering at Uppsala University and SLU. From now until June 2019, l will work on my Master Thesis project at the Department of Energy and Technology at SLU. The project is a technical evaluation of a pilot project concerning urine drying in Tampere, Finland. I will take part in the construction and installation of the urine drying units and while the system is running I will take samples and perform analyses, such as determining the concentrations of potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen in the dried urine. I will also evaluate how well the system is functioning on site, in terms of capacity and energy consumption.

Contact: Björn Vinnerås

SIDA and SEI visited us to discuss emergency sanitation

Published 23 January, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

On the 17th of January, Olle Castell, Caroline Gårdestedt och Malin Denninger from the Swedish Red Cross, and Axel Wurtz and Jairo Mosquera from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) came to visit Cecilia Lalander and Annika Nordin from the Environmental Engineering group. Several possible treatment technologies for the treatment of faecal sludge in emergency settings were discussed. Fly larvae composting and thermophilic aerobic digestion (TAD) were discussed in detail, as these are treatments that Cecilia and Annika have expert knowledge in. There was also time for a visit to the fly facility. Olle Castell and Malin Denninger updated Cecilia on the current situation in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. In early 2018, Cecilia spent one month in the camps with the Swedish Red Cross with the mission to evaluated possible treatment methods for the treatment of faecal sludge in the camps. We are pleased that the collaboration between the Swedish Red Cross and the Environmental Engineering group continues.

New Publication on removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in onsite wastewater treatment

Published 23 January, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

In this study, we investigated the potential of biochar filters as a replacement or complement for sand filters for removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from wastewater in onsite sewage facilities. In a 22-weeks experiment, concentrations, removal and adsorption of nine perfluoroalkyl carboxylates (PFCAs; C3- 11) and three perfluoroalkane sulfonates (PFSAs; C4, 6, 8) and one perfluorooctanesulfonamide (FOSA; C8) were investigated in four treatments: biochar with active, biochar with inactive biofilm, biochar without biofilm and sand with active biofilm. We found that biochar with no biofilm achieved higher removal efficiency (90-99%) and the adsorption capacity (73 -168 ng g-1 ) for C7-C11 PFCAs, C6, C8 PFSAs and FOSA, than the other biochar and sand treatments. For all biochar treatments, shorter-chain PFASs were more resistant to removal than longer-chain PFASs.

Nduhiu Gitahi, Doctor of Philosophy

Published 9 January, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

We congratulate Mr Nduhiu Johnson Gitahi to the degree Doctor of Philosophy achieved for his thesis work: Isolation, serotyping & molecular characterization of enteric pathogens for validation of Peepoo sanitization along handling chain at Kibera, Nairobi Kenya.

Two new interns for the urine drying project

Published 19 December, 2018
By Prithvi Simha

The latest additions to Kretsloppsteknik are two interns, Chinmoy Deb and Anooj Ramanathan, coming all the way from India to work on urine drying for their bachelor’s thesis. During their bachelors program, both Chinmoy and Anooj have been doing research on sanitation, working with nutrient recovery as well as removal of pharmaceutical residues from human urine. A keen interest in sanitation and hygiene technologies brings them to our group at SLU for a 3-months long internship that began in December. Over the course of the internship, they will be involved in ongoing projects related to process modelling, intensification, and optimization.

Water & Wastewater Speciality in the Journal Frontiers in Environmental Science

Published 16 December, 2018
By Prithvi Simha

A new section about water and wastewater has been launched as a speciality section in the journal, Frontiers in Environmental Science. Björn Vinnerås together with the co-chief editor, Prof. Paolo Perona and the members of the editorial board welcome contributions to the journal. We aim at publishing pioneering, high-quality research in key areas of integrated and sustainable water and wastewater resources management. These include, for instance, uses and processes involving surface- and groundwater bodies, engineering techniques with a focus on upstream work, virtual water networks, innovative water and wastewater treatment solutions in humid, semiarid and arid regions, analytical and numerical modelling as well as the use of innovative algorithms devoted to the analysis of big-datasets. For more information see the following blog post: https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/12/12/making-waves-paolo-perona-and-bjorn-vinneras-lead-new-water-related-section-in-frontiers-in-environmental-science/ Or directly at the home of the section, available at this link

Insects fed on waste as fish feed

Published 12 December, 2018
By Prithvi Simha

As part of the result of the Vinnova financed project Five tonnes of fishes in different dishes that aims at producing fish reared exclusively on Swedish produced feed, fish reared on insect based protein were tested and evaluated against fish reared on conventional fish feed. The protein in the test feed comprised of a 1:1 mixture of pea and insect protein. The insects (black soldier fly larvae) were fed stale bread. In total, 25 kg of rainbow trout in this first trial. To the joy of all, the fish fed with insects tasted really well, which suggest that it is feasible that insect can be a part of sustainable Swedish fish feed in the future.

Nature awareness champions competition participants visit

Published 7 December, 2018
By Evgheni Ermolaev

Participants of the “Naturvetarmästarna” competition in knowledge in natural sciences from 9th grade of Rosendalsgymnasiet visited our group at the Fly Larvae Composting Laboratory.
Björn Vinnerås, leader of the Environmental Engineering group, is introducing our vision and different directions of our research to the visitors. Photo: Evgheni Ermolaev.

The vision is to develop and evaluate technological solutions for safe and sustainable nutrient recycling from waste and wastewater to agriculture in a circular system.

The demonstration included two of several systems that the group is developing: organic waste management using black soldier fly larvae composting and sustainable fertilizer production through urine drying. Both system designs and components were presented and sparked multiple questions and discussions with the engaged pupils.

Working with K-12 pupils is a part of the ongoing group effort to introduce sustainable environmental engineering approaches to society and help in the effort of Sweden reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Contact
Evgheni Ermolaev

Developing a serious game for resource recovery

Published 5 December, 2018
By Prithvi Simha

In the project “Gamification of Sanitation Planning”, we are developing a serious game to support sanitation planning and increase the recovery of nutrients from waste flows. This fall we have had a series of workshops focusing on developing the game concept. The target group for the game is politicians and officials in decision-making positions. Other target groups are property owners, community-based organizations, students and other officials involved in sanitation planning. The aim of the game is to get the target group to understand what nutrient cycles are and what can be done to facilitate the construction of resource-recovery systems, i.e. how can different groups take responsibility? The game should also be fun to play, engaging, be able to inform about new technologies and lead to increased understanding of other actors’ perspectives. The game itself will be developed in early 2019 and be ready to test with audiences before the summer.