Dr R Allan, Prof W Sloan
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
About the Project
Background
The Hydro Nation Agenda sets out an ambition to harness Scotland`s water assets to support growth opportunities, sustainability and enhancements to the environment of Scotland. The initiative encourages innovation in water management, engineering and sciences that are delivered through collaboration between academia, research institutes and business. With this in mind this project proposal is an opportunity to engage business and deliver meaningful research that examines innovative waste water technologies.
It is a key EU-level goal to break the status-quo of current waste water treatment, particularly utilizing nature-based solutions to minimize energy and maximize circular economy principals. These overlap with Hydro-Nation goals of providing sustainable, low energy, simple (and hence with international appeal) solutions, especially those supporting Scottish-led innovation. Despite the attractiveness of solutions such as the living machine concept further weight of evidence is required to overcome barriers to uptake from regulators and developers. There may potentially include modular options of refinement in the process itself and pre-process (e.g. source separation) that will be considered and optimized by the proposal.
The relationship with the SME Biomatrix Water (Biomatrix) is fundamental to the success of the proposal as they provide the fundamental technology being optimised and the applications (and as such are already committed to support this). Biomatrix was established in 2008 and has adopted the ecological engineering principles developed by Dr Howard T Odum (Odum, 1971, Odum, 1975, Odum et al., 1987, Odum, 1996, Odum, 2001) and progressed by Dr John Todd, Dr Michael Shaw and others who founded Ocean Arks International in 1981. Ocean Arks International was a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the pursuit of technologies and ideas that contribute to a sustainable future. John Todd, Michael Shaw and their colleagues developed the concept of the “living machines” (Todd and Josephson, 1996). These systems use plants and other biological processes to treat water that has municipal or industrial effluent discharging into it (Todd et al., 2003). The living machine concept offered an alternative to established water treatment process that are generally regarded as energy intensive and require chemical addition. Biomatrix have developed and refined their approach over a number of years and would like to participate in research and development that will keep them at the forefront of ecological engineering and support the objectives of the Hydro Nation Agenda.
Aims and Objectives
This project seeks to work with Biomatrix to quantify the benefits of the deployment of the HFR technology. Within this context an embodied energy/carbon, phosphorus, and chemical budget for the system and compare these components to traditional waste water treatment processes. The output of the study will provide benchmarking information that may be used to inform investment decisions that factor in whole life costs and environmental benefits. In doing so, there may be opportunity to develop a more cost effective, modular approach to treatment design. The aims of the study are:
1. Evaluate the literature basis for ecological treatment of waste waters, possible modular approaches and compare against conventional treatment systems in effectiveness and costs (Year 1)
2. Undertake a one year monitoring evaluation of the input – output water quality of the existing living machine and document effectiveness evidence (Years 1-2)
3. Understand and model the treatment system capacity (flow and load) and produce a conceptual framework of input-output budgets for key resource aspects (phosphorus, water, energy) as a benchmark model for system optimization in further demonstration applications (Years 1-2)
4. Contrast this against a simplified conceptual model of resources in a conventional WWTW and generate a case for comparison of multiple benefits (costs, environmental impact and nutrient recovery; Year 2)
5. Following evaluation of the process conceptual model target experimentation to explore optimization of process (this will be tailored by direction of literature review, monitoring, conceptual model and student skills) in biogeochemical-engineering aspects (Years 2-3)
6. Undertake monitoring to evaluate effectiveness of process for the new application proposed for the HFR decentralized treatment plant in terms of build-up of effectiveness from a new installation during an acclimitisation phase to inform onmicrobial-chemical process development (Year 3-4).
7. Revise the conceptual framework of the HFR process to include new experimental evidence and present modular approaches (Year 4).
8. Develop translational principals for the conceptual model to assess transfer of technology to different situations (Year 4).
9. To provide training through the studentship in solving barriers to uptake of innovative designs for resource efficient waste water treatment
Funding Notes
CREW is a Scottish Government funded partnership between the James Hutton Institute and all Scottish Higher Education Institutes. Funding for this four year scholarship will be in line with the Research Councils UK doctoral stipend levels and indicative fees. The PhD will be registered with the University of Glasgow.
Applicants should have a first-class honours degree in a relevant subject or a 2.1 honours degree plus Masters (or equivalent). Hydro Nation Scholarships are awarded on competitive merit, taking into account the academic ability of the applicant. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in March 2015.
References
DUM, H. T. 1971. Environment, Power and Society.
ODUM, H. T. 1975. Ecosystems: Analysis and Prediction. Proceedings of the Conference on Ecosystems at Alta, 239-263.
ODUM, H. T. 1996. Scales of ecological engineering. Ecological Engineering, 6, 7-19.
ODUM, H. T. 2001. Energy hierarchy and money. Understanding Complexity, 139-148.
ODUM, H. T., ODUM, E. C. & BLISSET, M. 1987. Ecology and economy: Emergy analysis and public policy in Texas: The office of natural resources and texas department of agriculture. Ecology and Economy: Emergy Analysis and Public Policy in Texas, 163-171.
TODD, J., BROWN, E. J. G. & WELLS, E. 2003. Ecological design applied. Ecological Engineering, 20, 421-440.
TODD, J. & JOSEPHSON, B. 1996. The design of living technologies for waste treatment. Ecological Engineering, 6, 109-136.