Eco-engineering soil from mine tailings for native plant rehabilitation. Eco-engineering soil from mine tailings for native plant rehabilitation. This project aims to develop integrated and low-cost eco-engineering technology to purposefully accelerate in-situ formation of soil from tailings for sustainable native plant community rehabilitation at metal mines. Soil shortages at mines cost the Australian mining industry billions of dollars in sustainable rehabilitation of tailings, and threaten t ....Eco-engineering soil from mine tailings for native plant rehabilitation. Eco-engineering soil from mine tailings for native plant rehabilitation. This project aims to develop integrated and low-cost eco-engineering technology to purposefully accelerate in-situ formation of soil from tailings for sustainable native plant community rehabilitation at metal mines. Soil shortages at mines cost the Australian mining industry billions of dollars in sustainable rehabilitation of tailings, and threaten the industry’s ecological and commercial sustainability. Building on recent findings of critical processes in soil formation from copper/lead–zinc tailings, this research will use key biogeochemical and rhizosphere processes in the tailing-soil to create a functional 'technosol'. This technology is intended to be used in Australian metal mines to offset the soil needed to rehabilitate tailings landforms with native plant communities.Read moreRead less
Landfill Based Rapid Anaerobic Digestion of Municipal Solid Waste. The rapid digestion of municipal solid waste has the potential to make putrescible landfills obsolete. Waste can be digested prior to landfilling, eliminating odour and the emission of methane. Pre-digestion is currently performed in highly mechanised in-vessel digesters in some European locations. Demonstations in our laboratory have shown similar digestion rates can be achieved in static beds. This technology can be feasibl ....Landfill Based Rapid Anaerobic Digestion of Municipal Solid Waste. The rapid digestion of municipal solid waste has the potential to make putrescible landfills obsolete. Waste can be digested prior to landfilling, eliminating odour and the emission of methane. Pre-digestion is currently performed in highly mechanised in-vessel digesters in some European locations. Demonstations in our laboratory have shown similar digestion rates can be achieved in static beds. This technology can be feasibly scaled to digest waste streams of the size produced by Australian cities. The project will scale up this technology in a series of test cell trials at the Thiess Swanbank landfill near Ipswich, Queensland.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101401
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
A novel autotrophic biological nitrogen removal process driven by ammonia-oxidising archaea and anammox bacteria. This project will provide fundamental support to the development of more sustainable nitrogen removal processes. This would bring considerable benefits to the Australian wastewater industry and could potentially influence the way that biological nutrient removal plants are designed and operated.