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Innovative approaches to managing and understanding taste and odour in drinking water systems. Taste and odour (T/O) problems resulting from Cyanobacteria can change consumers' perception of product safety, resulting in many complaints, soaring management and treatment costs, and large financial losses, yet little is known about how they arise.
This project will provide the Australian Water Industry with cost-effective, sensitive, specific, rapid and practical tools for managing and understandi ....Innovative approaches to managing and understanding taste and odour in drinking water systems. Taste and odour (T/O) problems resulting from Cyanobacteria can change consumers' perception of product safety, resulting in many complaints, soaring management and treatment costs, and large financial losses, yet little is known about how they arise.
This project will provide the Australian Water Industry with cost-effective, sensitive, specific, rapid and practical tools for managing and understanding T/O episodes, and will also benefit the aquaculture and food sectors, and the research community. An improved ability to manage geosmin in drinking water, will also have positive repercussions on the Australian environment, by eliminating the need to use environmentally controversial control methods such as copper sulphate dosing.
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Assessing soil formation and erosion balances in the Top End with an expanded toolkit. This work is timely as it will provide the tools and the data to assess the sustainability with regard to soil loss of potential agricultural development in the Top End of Australia. With food-growing areas in southern Australia under stress from a prolonged drought, the Federal Government has established a Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce to explore the potential of the Top End for agricultural and ....Assessing soil formation and erosion balances in the Top End with an expanded toolkit. This work is timely as it will provide the tools and the data to assess the sustainability with regard to soil loss of potential agricultural development in the Top End of Australia. With food-growing areas in southern Australia under stress from a prolonged drought, the Federal Government has established a Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce to explore the potential of the Top End for agricultural and other development. A key component of its brief is that development must be sustainable. The economic consequences of increased agriculture in the North are likely to be profound, and the findings of this research will be crucial to success.Read moreRead less
A Fundamental Understanding of Methane Driven Denitrification. Eutrophication in waterways due to the presence of nutrients including nitrogen is a well-recognised environmental problem. Moreton Bay, for example, used to receive 3,300 tons of nitrogen each year from point sources. Stringent nitrogen discharge limits have therefore been imposed on most wastewater treatment systems across Australia. Nitrogen removal from wastewater is commonly accomplished in a biological way involving the use of ....A Fundamental Understanding of Methane Driven Denitrification. Eutrophication in waterways due to the presence of nutrients including nitrogen is a well-recognised environmental problem. Moreton Bay, for example, used to receive 3,300 tons of nitrogen each year from point sources. Stringent nitrogen discharge limits have therefore been imposed on most wastewater treatment systems across Australia. Nitrogen removal from wastewater is commonly accomplished in a biological way involving the use of bacteria. The project aims to investigate a particular bacterial community, which is able to perform nitrogen removal from wastewater with methane as a renewable carbon source. The project will therefore lead to more sustainable wastewater treatment systems.Read moreRead less
Hydraulic durability of geosynthetic clay liners in steep slope sealing systems for landfills constructed in former quarries. Old quarries are increasingly used for the construction of landfills. The engineering challenge in constructing such landfills includes developing an appropriate lining system for the often steep sided quarry walls. The use of GCLs as part of the lining system can be a viable and a cost effective solution. However, this solution suffers from the lack of meaningful data on ....Hydraulic durability of geosynthetic clay liners in steep slope sealing systems for landfills constructed in former quarries. Old quarries are increasingly used for the construction of landfills. The engineering challenge in constructing such landfills includes developing an appropriate lining system for the often steep sided quarry walls. The use of GCLs as part of the lining system can be a viable and a cost effective solution. However, this solution suffers from the lack of meaningful data on their hydraulic durability in this particular situation. This proposal presents an original approach to investigate this durability under operating conditions typically encountered in steep sided quarries. This work is expected to provide benefits to waste containment efforts at national and international level.Read moreRead less
Synthesis of Activated Carbon Supported Zero Valent Iron Nanoparticles and Application to Contaminant Degradation in Benthic Sediments. Sediment contamination is a major problem in harbours and estuaries around Australia. For example, in Sydney Harbour, a total fishing ban has been implemented as a result of excessive levels of dioxins and benzofurans in fish tissues. There is also concern at the possibility of large scale contamination of Botany Bay as a result of historic industrial activity a ....Synthesis of Activated Carbon Supported Zero Valent Iron Nanoparticles and Application to Contaminant Degradation in Benthic Sediments. Sediment contamination is a major problem in harbours and estuaries around Australia. For example, in Sydney Harbour, a total fishing ban has been implemented as a result of excessive levels of dioxins and benzofurans in fish tissues. There is also concern at the possibility of large scale contamination of Botany Bay as a result of historic industrial activity around the Bay. While dredging and on-land treatment of sediments is being adopted at the most severely contaminated sites, the cost of this approach is exorbitant. For sites where removal of contaminated sediments cannot be justified, the approach proposed in this study of a technology that entraps contaminants and enhances their in situ biodegradation is potentially a way forward.Read moreRead less
Settlement of municipal solid waste. The mechanisms governing municipal solid waste settlement are many and complex. There is a clear need to adopt a methodology to forecast the landfilling space based on high quality full scale data where composition, method of placement, compactive effort employed during placement of the waste, thickness of daily cover, stage filling and local moisture content are all recorded. This is the only sound scientific way forward to develop a predictive model that ....Settlement of municipal solid waste. The mechanisms governing municipal solid waste settlement are many and complex. There is a clear need to adopt a methodology to forecast the landfilling space based on high quality full scale data where composition, method of placement, compactive effort employed during placement of the waste, thickness of daily cover, stage filling and local moisture content are all recorded. This is the only sound scientific way forward to develop a predictive model that links settlement to these parameters. This project will contribute to developing such a methodology for the benefit of the Australian waste containment industry.Read moreRead less
Endogenous Processes in Biological Wastewater Treatment Systems. Biomass decay, or endogenous processes play a major role in biological wastewater treatment systems, but are poorly understood at present. Drawing on the expertise of four internationally leading groups in the area, we will carry out a comprehensive and profound study of these processes. The study will yield novel designs and operational strategies for wastewater treatment plants that optimise the microbial populations to achieve l ....Endogenous Processes in Biological Wastewater Treatment Systems. Biomass decay, or endogenous processes play a major role in biological wastewater treatment systems, but are poorly understood at present. Drawing on the expertise of four internationally leading groups in the area, we will carry out a comprehensive and profound study of these processes. The study will yield novel designs and operational strategies for wastewater treatment plants that optimise the microbial populations to achieve lower sludge production and higher treatment capacity and performance. It will also deliver a reliable, yet easy to use, model for endogenous processes. Furthermore, a number of highly skilled PhD students will be trained.Read moreRead less
Novel nitrogen removal process via nitrite in a biofilm system and analysis of microbial community dynamics. Nitrogen removal from wastewater is essential to protect our unique aquatic environment. This removal is typically achieved via two steps: Nitrification converts ammonium via nitrite to nitrate; denitrification converts nitrate via nitrite again to harmless nitrogen gas. This project will develop a biofilm reactor system, which enables this process to run via nitrite only, instead of nitr ....Novel nitrogen removal process via nitrite in a biofilm system and analysis of microbial community dynamics. Nitrogen removal from wastewater is essential to protect our unique aquatic environment. This removal is typically achieved via two steps: Nitrification converts ammonium via nitrite to nitrate; denitrification converts nitrate via nitrite again to harmless nitrogen gas. This project will develop a biofilm reactor system, which enables this process to run via nitrite only, instead of nitrate. Savings of 40% carbon and 25% oxygen requirements are possible this way. This process has not yet been demonstrated under controlled conditions, but recent progress in the research groups in Australia and Korea now offer novel ways to accomplish this promising process.Read moreRead less
Enhancing Biological Denitrification by Addition of External Carbon Sources: What, Where and When. External carbon addition for enhancing nitrogen removal is being increasingly used by wastewater treatment industry both in Australia and worldwide. This technology adds considerably to the operating cost, to which the non-optimal use of carbon sources has contributed significantly. To ensure long-term optimal denitrification performance with minimal use of external carbon, we will perform the firs ....Enhancing Biological Denitrification by Addition of External Carbon Sources: What, Where and When. External carbon addition for enhancing nitrogen removal is being increasingly used by wastewater treatment industry both in Australia and worldwide. This technology adds considerably to the operating cost, to which the non-optimal use of carbon sources has contributed significantly. To ensure long-term optimal denitrification performance with minimal use of external carbon, we will perform the first comprehensive study of the impact of external carbon addition on the denitrifying community and denitrification performance and, on this basis, answer the questions of what carbon sources should be used, where and when/how they should be added under various process design and operational conditions.Read moreRead less
The Development of a Model for Confined Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) Stormwater Filtration/Infiltration Systems for Australian Conditions. There is an increasing strain on scarce Australian water supplies and this requires effective water cycle management and protection of water resources as a whole. The proposed research aims to develop a model for the effective management of stormwater runoff through the investigation of confined filtration and infiltration devices in four separate loca ....The Development of a Model for Confined Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) Stormwater Filtration/Infiltration Systems for Australian Conditions. There is an increasing strain on scarce Australian water supplies and this requires effective water cycle management and protection of water resources as a whole. The proposed research aims to develop a model for the effective management of stormwater runoff through the investigation of confined filtration and infiltration devices in four separate locations. These confined systems will minimise the impacts of pollutant concentrations on native soils and groundwater. A model will be developed to predict required native soil permeabilities and residence times for adequate tertiary treatment in a variety of Australian conditions for non-potable reuse of runoff and/or groundwater recharge.Read moreRead less