Environmental Chemical Engineering

Our work covers some of major challenges facing populations around the world – the use and exploitation of natural resources. In particular, we have expertise in water, sustainability metrics, and coastal engineering.

Sustainable Water Engineering (Dr. Nick Hankins and Prof. Richard Darton)

Water is one of the planet's most precious natural resources, yet only 1% is available for human consumption. The sustainable supply of potable water and disposal of wastewater are thus among the major challenges of the 21st century. Even in the developed countries, with installed water distribution and purification infrastructures, maintenance of supply is a priority issue against a background of pressure to remediate and reduce pollution. Our activities focus on three main areas:

  • potable water treatment,
  • waste-water treatment and reuse, and
  • process water treatment and recycling.

The projects proposed under these headings address current problems arising from the impact of climate change on raw drinking water, environmental concerns arising from waste-water discharge, and the need to recycle (rather than discharge).

Membrane Technologies (Dr. Robert Field)

Our work on separation process concentrates on the development of membranes for specific tasks and their integration into processes and reactors to solve water purification and treatment problems:

  • a new type of integrated membrane bioreactor based on airlift crossflow filtration.
  • the development of the next generation of low-cost water and waste-water treatment membrane technologies with antifouling operation.
  • the fabrication of functional polymeric membranes for specialised applications.

Environmental Biotechnology (Prof. Ian Thompson)

We specialise in developing technologies for preventing pollution, stimulating microbial remediation of contaminated sites, and microbial transformation of green waste to high value products and energy. Our research focuses on the diversity and activity of microbial populations that degrade organic pollutants, both in the environment and bioreactors and enhancing this ability by employing engineered approaches such as ultrasound and electrokinetics. Current projects include:

  • developing microbial based end-of-pipe clean-up systems for treating industrial effluents,
  • the interaction of nanomaterials with microbial cells (to kill and stimulate their activity),
  • generation of succinate from plant waste materials.

In the past 6 years we have secured over £3.0M (NERC, BBSRC, EPSRC, DTI-LINK and companies such as Ford and BP) in competitive funding.

Coastal and River Action (Profs Alistair Borthwick, Paul Taylor, and Richard Soulsby)

We use computational methods to understand the hydrodynamics which affect environmental free surface flows. Our shallow flow solvers have been developed and validated for application to wide rivers, shallow lakes and coastal lagoons. In particular, our work has lead to an improved understanding of the mixing processes in the near-shore environment. Our work includes:

  • water quality and sediment transport in rivers, shallow lakes and estuaries.
  • hydrological forecasting, flood control and floodplain management.
  • water-borne pollutant transport.
  • chaotic advection of particles in oscillatory tidal flows.

Theoretical work is underway on the three-dimensional structure of wave-induced longshore and rip currents in the vicinity of typical rhythmic beach profiles. To complement this, detailed experimental measurements have been obtained of the wave climate and wave-induced currents near a multi-cusped beach in the EPSRC UK Coastal Research Facility (UKCRF) at Wallingford. Information about the velocity distribution in the vertical through a rip current and a meandering longshore current, including undertow, has been obtained for the first time.

Sustainability Metrics (Prof. Richard Darton)

So, what exactly is meant by 'sustainable'? Without the ability to measure and quantify effects and meaning, it will be very hard to create processes, policies, and practices which will actually have the effect and impact expected. Governments, NGOs, and international bodies are increasingly wanting to set meaningful targets which will deliver reduced emissions of greenhouse gases, yet allow developing nations to improve the standard of living for the poorest peoples of the world. Both the developed and developing worlds must use natural sources sustainably. Our work includes:

  • scenario building and uncertainties for energy sources.
  • multicriteria indicators.
  • performance monitoring.
  • resource efficiency.

Last modified 13 February 2008 by WEBNOBODY.