AWMC Annual Report 2011 by Advanced Water Management Centre

Annual Report

2011

contents

“I am delighted to introduce the 2011 Annual Report of the Advanced Water Management Centre”

Executive Dean’s Message

Director’s Report

Team Achievements

Funding Achievements

Industry Partnerships

Commercial Activities

Analytical Research

Research Programs

Anaerobic Technologies

Greenhouse Gases

Sewer Research

Water Recycling

Microbial Ecology

Nutrient & Resource Recovery

(Bio)Electrochemical Systems

The AWMC Team

International Visitors

Financial Report

Active Research Grants

Publications

Conference Participation

Seminars

As the Chair of the Advisory Board it is my pleasure to introduce the 2011 annual report for the Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC). It has been another successful and rewarding year for the AWMC team, with a seemingly borderless list of stakeholders, a diverse and relevant research program and outstanding education opportunities. The AWMC continues to meet the ongoing challenges facing the water industry, leading the world in many aspects of the urban industrial water cycle. The AWMC research program has changed the way industry and water authorities view their treatment processes, manage their critical infrastructure and add value to agro-industries. The relevance of the AWMC research program is exemplified in the growing list of collaborators and partners, which include industry, Australian government bodies, associations and research institutes. The AWMC is the key driver of an initiative to bring together UQ Water priorities building on a strong engagement program to connect with the global industry.

As a part of Engineering at UQ, the AWMC provides excellent research higher degree opportunities and has currently over 40 students covering a diverse range of fields. The AWMC continues to build on our connections with over 60 local and international alumni. I encourage you to connect with the AWMC and discover how you can benefit from engaging with an international centre of excellence.

Professor Graham Schaffer Executive Dean Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology

executive dean’s message

AWMC Annual Report 2011

director’s report

“ I am very pleased to present our Annual Report for 2011, which highlights our activities and achievements in what has been quite an eventful and, yet again, a highly successful year”

As one of our current research project titles has put it very well; “The only constant is change”. While it might sound like a cliché, a key factor in achieving long-term success in any organisation is to continuously change and adapt to the challenges of the environment it operates in. At the AWMC we have regularly reviewed and re-focused our operations and research directions. But as I am still writing this Director’s welcome note, not everything needs to change at once. We have experienced many challenges in some of our key research fields in 2011. With the major flood in January in South-East Queensland, and similar situations elsewhere in Australia, the drivers and demands for water recycling expertise are lessening – for now at least. We have been able to adapt our growing expertise in this “clean water field”, to engage more strongly with the drinking water providers in the region, and we will see further expansion of these successful collaborations in the future. Similarly, while nutrient removal has been a key focus of the wastewater treatment research for a long time, we are now targeting novel approaches for nutrient recovery and recycling, as well as energy efficient treatment options to minimise the environmental footprint. These operations will maximise their beneficial reuse opportunities in water, nutrients, biosolids and other areas. The newly successful Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRC WSC) is yet another demonstration of the changing drivers in both the research and the industry environment. This new centre, lead by Monash University will include the University of Western Australia and The University of Queensland as key research hubs. The CRC WSC will integrate not only biological/chemical science and engineering expertise, but expand into the social and economic sciences as well

as urban planning and architecture to deliver its vision of an optimal integration of the many water-related elements in future cities and urban developments. Since our research activities now span the entire urban-industrial water field, we can transfer novel concepts and knowledge from one research area into others. A very interesting example of the research on “free nitrous acid” or FNA, that was identified as a strong inhibitor for biological nutrient removal processes in our past studies. It has now been successfully applied as an efficient biofilm control technology for improved sewer management, being commercialised through our new spin-off company Cloevis. We are now also exploring the use of this low-cost, ‘green’ chemical for applications in the water recycling area and the resources sector, a new endeavour for the team. This report also demonstrates that despite all these changes and new areas, our core commitment to world-class research, relevant to industry, still stands strongly. We do not intend to change that formula as we see this as our strongest asset in being a successful university research centre while also making a difference in industry and society. I would like to thank everyone for the positive feedback we are getting for our work and I would encourage all of you to continue to engage with us, to keep ‘connected’ with the research community and industry, ready for the next wave of change that will surely be just around the corner.

Director Professor Jurg Keller

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Team

Achievements

Australian engineers and scientists and Jurg’s election is clear recognition of his leadership and achievement to innovative water technologies in the water industry. • Mr Barry Cayford, PhD student, won the best presentation at the Water Panel PostGraduate Presentation Evening run by Engineers Australia. • Prof Jurg Keller and Prof Zhiguo Yuan were recognised in the UQ internal Q-Index awards for the following categories: – Prof Zhiguo Yuan - Top 10 Higher Degree Research Student Completions

• Prof Jurg Keller was awarded a UQ Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellowship for “Sustainable water treatment technologies for inorganic pollutants”. The Fellowship supports key academics within UQ to build on previous high-level fellowships and further raise their profile as research leaders in their fields in Australia. • Dr Bernardino Virdis was awarded the UQ Graduate School Dean’s Commendation for Outstanding Research Higher Degree. This formally recognises outstanding PhD and M Phil graduates who receive unanimous commendations from their examiners for a genuine and substantial contribution to their field of research. • Dr Gene Tyson was one of three finalists for the 2011 Eureka Prize sponsored by 3M, in the category for ‘Emerging Leader in Science’. • Prof Jurg Keller was appointed as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE). ATSE is a body of eminent

– Prof Jurg Keller - Top 10 Research Input Points and Top 10 Higher Degree Research Student Completions. • Ms Yingyu Law, PhD student, won the best presentation in the “Water Management and Agriculture Category” at the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology Engineering Postgraduate Conference. • Ms Chrystelle Ayache, PhD student, won the Chemical Engineering round of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, while PhD student, Mr Steven Kenway, was awarded the ‘People’s Choice’. • Dr René Rozendal was published in ABC News for work on making hydrogen fuel from bacteria and water. • Dr Phil Bond, Dr Fran Slater and Mr Jeremy Barr’s work on “Pandemic pharmaceutical dosing effects on wastewater treatment: No adaptation of activated sludge bacteria to degrade the antiviral drug Oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) and loss of nutrient removal performance” was published on Planet Earth Online.

• The water recycling group, alongside Unity Water and Veolia Water Australia made headlines on their work on new methods of purifying treated wastewater at the Caboolture Sewerage Treatment Plant. • Dr Paul Jensen and A/Prof Damien Batstone, along with MLA and EBCRC successfully piloted their waste management technology, officially opening the Biosolids Demonstration Plant at Teys Bros. abattoir, Beenleigh. • Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Guangming Jiang, Dr Tony Keating (Uniquest) and Dr Howard Leemon (Uniquest) were a finalist in the UQ Business School awards for their new commercial venture; Cloevis. For more information, see page 8. • Ms Yingyu Law, PhD student, was awarded for her presentation in the category of ‘early career scientist workshop’ at the Second International Conference on Nitrification (IC0N2), The Netherlands. • Dr Julien Reungoat, Dr Yang Mu and Dr Maria José Farré were promoted to Research Fellows in recognition of their achievements as early career academics. • In January 2012 the new Centre for Microbial Electrosynthesis (CEMES) will be launched as a part of a UQ Strategic Initiative. The research focus of CEMES will be electrochemically driven bioprocesses with a focus on the production of value added bulk chemicals. Dr Jens Kroemer was appointed as the inaugural director of CEMES.

Commonwealth Government Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) scheme

FUNDING

Achievements

Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery projects • “Bio-electrochemical sulfate reduction and sulfur recovery with external carbon source” - Prof Jurg Keller, Dr Yang Mu and Dr Stefano Freguia • “Establishing a missing link between the global nitrogen and carbon cycles Anaerobic methane oxidation coupled to denitrification” - Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Florent Angly, Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, UQ. • “Biofilm control in wastewater systems using free nitrous acid - A renewable material from wastewater” – Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Phil Bond, Dr Liu Ye, and Prof David Richardson (University of East Anglia, UK)

ARC Linkage Grants • “Stabilisation of algal biomass harvested from coal seam gas associated water to generate a renewable, high nutrient resource” – Dr Steven Pratt, Dr Fran Slater, Prof Paul Lant, A/Prof Peer Schenk (School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, UQ) Led by the School of Chemical Engineering. • “Adsorption on activated alumina: Mitigating fouling of water treatment processes caused by deposition of silica, organics and hardness ions” – Dr Steven Pratt, Prof Paul Lant, Dr Christopher Pratt (Australia Pacific LNG Pty Ltd) led by School of Chemical Engineering. • “Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from sewers - understanding, modelling and mitigation” – Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Gene Tyson, Dr Keshab Sharma, Dr Bing-jie Ni and Dr Sudhir Murthy (DC Water, USA). Industry collaborators are Allconnex Water, District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (USA), Melbourne Water and South East Water.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

• The CRC for Water Sensitive Cities is a $30M initiative encompassing The University of Queensland, Monash University and the University of Western Australia. The AWMC is well positioned as the Queensland hub being coordinated by Prof Jurg Keller, and Prof Zhiguo Yuan leading one of the four research programs on Future Technologies. • Extensions for our two Environmental Biotechnology CRC (EBCRC) projects (Granulation pilot plant and Biosolids) were successfully negotiated for a further two years with almost $1 million of additional funding from the EBCRC as well as contributions from UQ as part of a collaborative agreement. • Dr Stephan Tait has secured funding from the Pork CRC with a project entitled “Smarter pork: Towards zero carbon at increased profit”.

Australian Water Recycling Centre • The AWMC has secured funding of over $1.45 million over a five year period to investigate an affordable and sustainable water recycling process through optimal technology integration

Queensland Smart Futures Fund • The Queensland Smart State Strategy is directed at creating knowledge, creativity and innovations to drive economic growth to improve the prosperity and quality of life for all Queenslanders. Dr Jelena Radjenovic has recently been awarded a highly competitive three year Smart Futures Fellowship award investigating the advanced electrochemical treatment of sewage and industrial effluents in Queensland.

Meat Industry Funding

Endeavour Research Fellowship • Dr Falk Harnisch (TU Braunschweig, Germany) has secured a six month Australian Endeavour Research Fellowship to work in the BES program on his project “Electroactive biofilms Structure and function”.

The University of Queensland funding schemes • Dr Bogdan Donose and Prof Jurg Keller attained $220,000 as part of a Major Equipment and Infrastructure grant, (with supporting contributions from Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis and Institute for Molecular Bioscience) to purchase a Multiplex cantilever sensor platform to create a unique method for monitoring surface stress and mass addition in thin biofilms. This is the first of its kind in Australia providing a versatile instrumentation platform for a wide range of applications across the University and our broader scientific community. • UQ Early Career Research Awards have allowed some of our emerging fellows to seed their own research projects within the Centre. In 2011, awards were given to Dr Bing-Jie Ni 'Nitrous oxide emissions by ammonia oxidizing bacteria - Mechanisms and modelling”; Dr Stefano Freguia “Understanding microbially catalysed cathodic oxygen reduction” and Dr Ramon Ganigué Pagès - “Understanding biological transformations in sewer sediments”. • Dr Victoria Flexer was awarded a UQ Postdoctoral Fellowship researching new approaches for the generation of renewable fuels and chemicals from wastewater in microbial fuel cells. • Dr Maria José Farré and Dr Howard Weinberg (University of South Carolina, USA) were awarded a UQ Travel Award for International Collaborative Research.

• A/Prof Damien Batstone and Prof Jurg Keller have successful secured in the order of $271,000 through the Australian Meat Processing Corporation (AMPC) grants in conjunction with Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA). There is an initial one-year funding for three projects – “Integrated agro industrial wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery”, “Energy and Nutrient analysis on Individual Waste Streams” and “High rate aerobic treatment combined with anaerobic digestion and Annamox”.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

industry partnerships

Close collaborative partnerships are a key element of the AWMC’s success in transferring research knowledge into practice for the benefit of our partners and the broader industry. 2011 industry recognition awards The strong connection that the AWMC team has with industry is, in many ways, why we celebrate our research program success. There are numerous partners that have gone the extra mile for our teams and in 2011 we presented the AWMC Industry Recognition Awards, to thank these unsung heroes.

Several nominations were put forward from our research teams but in the end four people where chosen as the inaugural winners. Ian Johnson from Allconnex Water (pictured) has been involved in all field work conducted at the Gold Coast for our sewer research program over the last eight years at all times of the day and night. John Lewis of Teys Bros. was recognised for his generous time and advice spent on the construction of the biosolids demonstration plant at Beenleigh. The treatment operator at the South Caboolture Water Reclamation Plant, Rhonda Bostock from Unitywater, was a a deserving recipient for an award due to her support of two pilot plants the AWMC has onsite. And the last recognised partner was a team from the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), Paul Hough, Myles Waller, Mark Davidson, James Fels, Darren Renouf, John Ferris, Jacob Gruythuysen, Joel Hodge and David Rissik, who have provided outstanding access and support in the field for our Greenhouse Gas research team.

AWMC pilot study saves Queensland Urban Utilities Energy recovery is one of Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) core strategies to minimise energy input at its wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Waste activated sludge pre-treatment was being assessed as an option to improve biogas production and volatile solids (VS) destruction during biosolids treatment.

The AWMC provided full analytical support, independent assessments and recommendations during this investigation. From literature, it was expected that sludge pre-treatment would increase the biodegradability rate and extent of activated sludge resulting in higher biogas production and solids destruction in the digesters. Sonication has the potential to improve sludge biodegradability by lysing bacterial cells prior to mesophilic anaerobic digestion. The effectiveness of cell lysis increases with increasing energy input from the sonication system, this increases the amount of readily degradable soluble material resulting in improved biodegradation and higher hydrolysis rates. To evaluate the potential for sonication to improve plant operations, primary digesters at Luggage Point WWTP were evaluated. The AWMC team collected samples from these digesters, provided a full suite of chemical analyses and developed a detailed model analysis of the full scale operations. Separate laboratory tests were conducted to provide an independent set of kinetic parameters. The results collected were all consistent and the AWMC was able to make a very clear recommendation. This study has shown how water utilities are able to benefit from the AWMC expertise, capabilities and full analytical service to gain a very valuable outcome for their business. The results of this study will be presented at the Australian Water Association Biosolids and Source Management National Conference, held in June 2012.

We wish to acknowledge and thank the following Academy, Association, Industry and Research Partners for their continued support in 2011.

– School of Chemical Engineering

INRA - French National Institute for Agricultural Research

– School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences (SCMB)

International Water Centre

– School of Earth Sciences Tyr

IRSA, Italy

UniQuest

J. Craig Venter Institute, USA

United Water International

Joint Genome Institute, USA

Unitywater

Kingsford Environmental

Université Laval, Canada

Linkwater

University of Aalborg, Denmark

Aarhus University, Denmark

Magneto Special Anodes

University of Auckland, New Zealand

Australia Pacific LNG - Origin Energy Resources Limited

Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA)

University of East Anglia, UK

Australian Academy of Science

Melbourne Water Corporation

University of California, Berkeley, USA

Monash University

University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), USA

AECOM Allconnex Water Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC) AnoxKaldnes Biopolymer (Sweden)

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) Australian Government: – Australian Research Council (ARC) National Water Commission – Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research – Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) – Australian Institute for Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) – Australian Institute of Marine Sciences Australian National University (ANU) Australian Meat Processors Corporation (AMPC) Australian Pork Limited (APL) Australian Water Association (AWA) Barwon Water Brown and Caldwell CH2M Hill CSIRO Carlton United Brewers Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) Curtin University DCM Process Control Department of Energy, USA District of Columbia Water and Sewage Authority, USA Environmental Biotechnology CRC (EBCRC) FSA Consulting (FSA) Gelita Pty Ltd GHD Ghent University, Belgium Grains Research and Development Corporation Griffith University

AWMC Annual Report 2011

– Queensland Brain Institute (QBI)

Hunter Water Corporation

International Water Association

Brisbane City Council

Healthy Waterways Pty Ltd

Pork CRC QGC Pty Ltd

University of Melbourne

Queensland Government: – Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI)

University of Newcastle

– Queensland Environmental Protection Agency – Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) – Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services – Queensland Water Commission Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) SA Water Santos Pty Ltd Seqwater SEQ Water Grid Manager Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, USA South East Water Limited Sydney Water Corporation Technical University Braunschweig, Germany

University of New South Wales University of North Carolina, USA University of Science and Technology of China, China University of Sydney University of Technology, Sydney University of Twente, The Netherlands Urban Water Security Research Alliance (UWSRA) Veolia Environment Research and Innovation (VERI) Veolia Environmental Services Veolia Water Australia Visy Pulp and Paper Wageningen University, The Netherlands Waste Technologies of Australia Pty Ltd Water Corporation Water Quality Research Australia (WQRA) WateReuse Research Foundation Water Services Association of Australia

Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

WaterSecure (merged with Seqwater)

Technical University Munich, Germany

WSN Environmental Solutions Australia

Trisco Foods Teys Bros. The University of Queensland: – Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE) – Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) – Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM) – Global Change Institute (GCI) – Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) – National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (EnTox) – Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI)

AWMC Annual Report 2011

commercial activities

Bilexys has developed a revolutionary wastewater treatment technology, which converts organics in wastewater to sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide for re-use on site. The Bilexys technology is based on a bioelectrochemical system, which harnesses naturally occurring electrochemically active bacteria as catalysts to convert dissolved organic pollutants to hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide. The process is highly controllable and can produce the desired product at high purity. The Bilexys technology is applicable to a wide range of wastewater types, concentrations and flowrates. The chemicals produced by Bilexys reduce or replace the need to purchase and transport chemicals, providing significant environmental and economic benefit to customers, with payback times between two and three years. Target industries include pulp and paper, petrochemical, breweries and wineries, with a total market opportunity of several billion dollars. The Bilexys technology is currently being trialled at a pulp and paper plant. For more information please contact info@bilexys.com

AWMC Annual Report 2011

• Total organic and inorganic carbon

The analytical laboratory of the AWMC provides analytical services to UQ and affiliated external clients. Besides routine analyses, the ASL continuously adapts and develops new analytical methods in order to support researchers in their cutting edge research areas.

The Analytical Lab is equipped with a diverse range of high-quality analytical instruments:

The main focus of the ASL lies in the analysis of all water including domestic, industrial and mining wastewater, surface, recycled, storm and drinking water. With the increasing importance of coal seam gas in Australia, the ASL has been analysing a range of samples from research projects dealing with waters of the coal seam gas industry. In order to analyse these highly concentrated samples, analytical methods had to be changed accordingly.

Cloevis promises low cost and effective prevention of sewer corrosion and odour for water utilities and municipalities worldwide. The Cloevis technology is founded on a proprietary mix of chemicals, developed at the AWMC that has been shown to prevent sewer corrosion and odour at the source. By attacking the problem at the source, this novel technology is able to significantly reduce the amount of chemicals required, yielding substantial financial and environmental benefits. To effectively deliver the Cloevis chemicals, Cloevis leverages another AWMC-developed technology, SeweX. Using the combined technologies enables to accurately determine where sewer corrosion and odour hotspots in sewer networks and develop optimised dosing strategies to effectively reduce the odour and corrosion impacts. During 2011, Cloevis was recognised as a finalist in the UQ Business School’s Enterprize Business Competition. In cooperation with the AWMC, Cloevis will perform its first major field trial at a large water utility in south-east Queensland in early 2012. Cloevis has also formed a partnership with a major USA full-service provider, providing an industrial engineering capability allowing Cloevis to deliver a complete chemical dosing solution. This partner also gives an ideal platform for Cloevis’ technology to enter the large USA market. For more information please contact info@cloevis.com

The AWMC Analytical Services Laboratory (ASL)

SeweX provides consulting services on the management of sulfide related odour problems in sewer systems to the water industry in Australia and abroad. The SeweX model, which has been developed by the Centre’s strong and internationally leading research team on sewer systems, is highly effective in identifying sulfide-related problems and investigating cost effective strategies for their mitigation. The services provided by SeweX covers a wide spectrum of issues related to sewer management such as identification of shortfalls in existing mitigation strategies, investigation of various options for odour control, and assessment of the impacts of network expansion on the current sewer operation. The SeweX model is a mathematical model describing the physical, chemical and biological processes in sewers. In addition to predicting sulfide generation and emission, the model is capable of predicting the formation and emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in sewer networks. The SeweX model won the 2008 International Water Association’s Project Innovation Award (East Asia and Pacific Region) and the 2008 Excellence Award in Research, Development and Innovation of Engineers of Australia (Queensland Division). The model is under continuous enhancement under the Sewer research program, see page 16.

In 2011 the ASL bought a new gas chromatograph with two ECD detectors (GC/ECD/ECD) for the analysis of ppb levels of organic disinfection by-products in recycled and drinking water. On a routine basis ASL is measuring: • Micropollutants and pharmaceuticals • Nutrients (N & P), total Kjeldahl nitrogen and total phosphorous • Inorganic sulfur species and anions • Metals and total sulfur • Volatile fatty acids and alcohols • Green house gases (CH4 and N2O) • Disinfection by-products • Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) • Volatile organic sulfur compounds • Polyhydroxy butyrate (PHB) and polyhydroxy valerate (PHV)

• COD (chemical oxygen demand)

• Agilent gas chromatograph with two injectors and two electron capture detectors (ECD) for simultaneous injections • Agilent gas chromatograph with a CTC Analytics autosampler and ECD detector • Liquid chromatograph-tandem mass spectrometer (LC-MS-MS ) (AB4000 QTRAP) • Agilent gas chromatograph with mass spectrometer and sulfur chemiluminescence detector (GC-MS/SCD) • Two Shimadzu HPLCs with reflective index, photoarray/UV and fluorescence detector • Three gas chromatographs with flame ionization detectors (FID)

AWMC offers methane potential and activity testing Tests developed at the AWMC can provide certainty for anaerobic digestion projects. Anaerobic digestion technologies are an attractive option for the treatment of organic solids, resulting in a net energy generation and production of safe, easy-to-handle residues for beneficial reuse in agriculture. However, the feasibility of such a project is highly dependent on the speed and extent of degradation, which can vary for different materials. The AWMC is a key leader and developer of anaerobic biodegradability, activity and inhibition tests, offering independent testing to enable certainty in feasibility analysis. In 2011, the AWMC expanded capacity to include analysis of sludge dewaterability, another key factor in sludge management performance. Ongoing testing of existing projects offers benchmarks to assess process efficiency and product quality. In 2011, methane potential testing was used alongside activity testing to help Sydney Water Corporation evaluate and understand the performance of wastewater plants in their treatment network.

• Analytic Jena total organic carbon analyser with total nitrogen detector (TOC/TN)

Examples of previous clients for this testing include:

• Dionex ion chromatograph with conductivity and UV detector

• Carlton United Brewers

• Allconnex Water • Melbourne Water

• Lachat flow injection analyser

• Queensland Urban Utilities

• Perkin Elmer inductive coupled plasma – optical emission spectroscopy instrument (ICP-OES)

• Trisco Foods

For more information please contact Dr Beatrice Keller-Lehmann, b.keller@awmc.uq.edu.au

• South East Water • Visy Pulp and Paper • WSN Environmental Solutions Australia For more information please contact Dr Paul Jensen, p.jensen@awmc.uq.edu.au

For more information please contact the SeweX Business Manager, Mr Shaun Corrie shaun@sewex.com.au or visit our website at www.sewex.com.au

AWMC Annual Report 2011

research Programs

The Advanced Water Management Centre is an internationally recognised centre of excellence in innovative water technology and management. The particular strength of the AWMC is the close integration of biological and chemical sciences, process engineering and informatics. This unique combination forms the basis for ground-breaking research but also offers exciting opportunities for the development and application of user-specific solutions to challenging environmental problems. Established in 1996, the AWMC research program initially focused on the challenges of the protection of waterways and the reduction of nutrients in the environment. The AWMC led the world in nutrient removal, innovative processes and process control of wastewater treatment plants. The impact of this early work is still being applied today by water authorities and local agro-industries. Today the AWMC still shows great relevance to the global water industry. The research portfolio now consists of seven linked programs. The combined efforts of these programs are achieving sustainable outcomes for the water industry, have challenged the industry views on greenhouse gas emissions, added value to our waste processes and discovered how to protect our water resources and critical infrastructure. The follow pages take a look at each of our programs and the outcomes for 2011.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

anaerobic

technologies The anaerobic technology group works across the product development cycle, from the investigation of basic relationships between microbes to the construction of large demonstration plants. The knowledge developed in the laboratory feeds directly into our full-scale implementation and consulting work. Linkages with industry are strong, and we have large research projects across most industrial sectors, including energy, agriculture, waste/ wastewater treatment, and industrial biotechnology.

Anaerobic technologies facilitate the recovery of energy and nutrients from wastewater and organic residues otherwise regarded as waste, without the need for expensive aeration operations. Anaerobic technologies can generate energy rather than consuming it through the production of methane-rich biogas and can mobilise valuable nutrients stored in organic materials with excellent fertiliser potential. The combination of these factors ensures anaerobic technology has a strong future within an environmentally sustainable Australia. Over the past five years the anaerobic technology group has moved from strength to strength, attracting over $5M in competitive funding across multiple industrial sectors. High quality research requires a multidisciplinary approach. The anaerobic technology group achieves this by incorporating process engineers, molecular scientists, biotechnologists and chemists into a team of over 10 academic researchers and collaborators, eight higher degree research students, and a number of undergraduate positions. Here we showcase just a few of our active projects in 2011.

AWMC beefs up anaerobic research In 2011 the AWMC strengthened its partnership with the Australian meat industry. The meat industry is among the largest rural industries in Australia incorporating numerous processing facilities across the nation and hence has the potential for significant environmental impacts. These processing plants are faced with ever increasing environmental pressures such as stricter waste and wastewater quality requirements, tighter environmental emission regulations and higher community expectations. The AWMC is working in partnership with the Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC) and Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) to help the industry meet these challenges. Technologies are being developed to ensure environmental protection by reducing emissions, increasing the availability of green energy and ensuring the responsible and efficient use of resources. Energy and nutrient analysis on individual waste streams Waste and wastewater from meat processing is a potential source of energy, nutrients, and water. There are numerous waste and wastewater streams within a processing plant and the quantity and quality of resources vary heavily in different streams within a single plant, as well as between plants. This variability has a direct impact on the development and implementation of treatment and recovery technologies. The AWMC is working alongside processors at plants across Australia to identify

AWMC Annual Report 2011

the temporal flow patterns, chemical properties and recovery potential within individual waste streams. This project is identifying the significant waste-toenergy or by-product-to-energy and nutrient opportunities in meat processing wastewater. Small / medium scale organic solids stabilisation AWMC researchers continue to demonstrate. temperature phased anaerobic digestion (TPAD) as a low-cost, low-impact technology for the treatment of organic solid waste through the operation of a biosolids demonstration facility. Launched in 2011 at a red meat processing facility in South East Queensland, the facility is designed to treat approximately five wet tonnes of waste per day and we are now able to design and build larger systems as well. The implementation of a solids handling system in 2011, capable of feeding whole paunch has enhanced capacity to assess high-solids feed levels. Results from the demonstration plant indicate that full scale implementation of TPAD would allow every 10 tonnes of solid waste to be reduced to four tonnes of organic fertiliser, and at the same time generate up to 20% of the plant gas requirements directly from the waste. The demonstration facility is supported by Environmental Biotechnology CRC (EBCRC), Queensland Government, MLA, AMPC and Teys Bros.

can increase the rate of methanogenesis such that retention times of less than 4 days can be achieved.This would allow substantial decreases in cost, and improve operability. This project, funded by the EBCRC, aims to develop new high rate technologies by verifying the feasibility of high-temperature, high-rate methanogenesis, and the key mechanisms of the process. A combination of chemical engineering and microbial analysis tools are being used, and early results are already improving our understanding of these important organisms. An alternate approach to HRAT is to augment existing technology. Anaerobic granules have been widely used as the basis for upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) processes, the most common HRAT for many years. However, traditional UASB reactors are intolerant to solids, fats, and other constituents that may be present in complex industrial wastewaters. Anaerobic digestion is a biologically mediated process, thus the microbes present in anaerobic granules draw the attention of researchers. The team has developed new characterisation and layer-based sampling methods to harvest and assess the functional microbes at different

depths within anaerobic granules. This research has shown that the microbes responsible for breaking down complex organics are mainly found on the granule surface, and can be removed by applying shear. The next stage is to manipulate granules by immobilising key microbes on the granule surface. This may enhance granule function developing rapid-start up potential, or enhance the utility of granular processes.

Opening the “black box” The anaerobic technology group is supporting research led by microbial ecologists from AWMC and the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE) to “open the black box” and better understand microbial communities in engineered systems. Anaerobic fermenters and (Bio)Electrochemical systems designed to produce renewable fuels and other chemicals from lignocellulose and other organic waste were commissioned in 2011. The team is investigating the dynamics and succession of microbial communities in these reactors, as well as the directed evolution in specific genes such as cellulases. The ultimate goals are to better understand the relationship between microbial communities and system functionality, to mine for novel

cellulases or other key degradation enzymes, and to explore the impact of selective pressure on microbial community development. This work is aimed at “Biotechnological solutions to Australia’s transport energy and greenhouse gas challenges” and forms part of the CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship established in 2010. Work focused on genomic analysis of processes occurring in anaerobic digestion systems is being complemented by modelling and analysis on a very fundamental level in the ARC funded “Interspecies electron transfer” project. Anaerobic digestion is governed by the need to find electron sinks, and often multiple species are involved in this difficult task, with substrate, electrons, and energy being shared between different organisms. Understanding and controlling this would allow us to manipulate processes on a fundamental level and enable new areas of environmental biotechnology. Multidisciplinary approaches are being used in this project, including artificial mixed cultures, mathematical modelling, genomic analysis, and advanced microscopic spectroscopy to provide a whole picture of this complex system.

Integrated agro-industrial wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery Anaerobic lagoons, the default option in agro-industries, are large and inefficient and with increasing environmental pressures will become much more difficult to implement and continue to operate. AWMC researchers are developing an alternative to lagoons as part of an integrated approach to wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery. Current research focuses on the application of high rate anaerobic membrane bioreactor processes (AMBR) to agro-industrial wastewater. AMBR processes are inherently tolerant to solids, a key factor that has previously limited the use of high rate anaerobic technology in meat processing applications. Using a high-rate anaerobic primary stage also allows for nutrient recovery, fitting into our emerging nutrient recovery research areas.

High rate anaerobic technology (HRAT): Boost the microbes, boost the process Anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge normally occurs at retention times of 15-25 days generating high capital and operating costs. Recent work has shown that high temperature operation

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Some highlights of 2011

Full-scale monitoring and modelling of nitrous oxide (N2O) formation in wastewater treatment plants

greenhouse gases

The greenhouse gases (GHG) research program has developed substantially over the last few years, now with five on-going ARC Discovery and Linkage projects with a total funding of over $2M. The GHG group consists of over 10 research staff and students. The group’s research focuses on the two major fugitive greenhouse gases, namely nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4 ), from wastewater collection systems (i.e. sewers), wastewater treatment plants, waterways (estuaries, bays) and water storage systems.

N2O is produced during biological nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Due to the highly dynamic conditions in WWTPs, N2O emission profiles are highly variable and difficult to measure. In collaboration with the Western Australia Water Corporation and Melbourne Water Corporation, the GHG team completed the monitoring of two full-scale plants in 2011. Three more full-scale plants will be monitored in 2012. In May 2011, the first on-line N2O monitoring in Australia was carried out at the Woodman Point WWTP. The N2O emission factor was determined to vary between 1.0 to 1.5 % of the total nitrogen load. A comprehensive mathematical model considering N2O production by both nitrification and denitrification was developed and implemented to assist the understanding of potential predominant N2O production pathways in this plant. The N2O emission profile is described well by the model, suggesting that the pathways proposed to date can predict N2O emissions from full-scale WWTP. Ammonia oxidation was identified as one of the key sources of N2O under aerobic conditions whereas heterotrophic denitrification consumes N2O under anoxic conditions, resulting in negligible N2O accumulation during non-aerated anoxic phases. Melbourne Water Corporation as a new industry partner In mid 2011, Melbourne Water Corporation formally joined the ARC Linkage project, “Understanding and mitigating nitrous oxide emission from wastewater treatment plants” as another industry partner, which commenced in October 2009, in collaboration with the WA Water Corporation. We will measure and model N2O emissions from its two largest wastewater treatment plants in 2012. Both of these plants present unique challenges. The experimental approach has been developed, and the on-line monitoring system is being designed and implemented. Flood impact on GHG emissions from Brisbane river Natural waterways can be significant sources of N2O and CH4. In collaboration with Seqwater and Healthy Waterways, we started investigating N2O and CH4 emissions from natural waterways in South East Queensland from 2010. Our research data have demonstrated that all investigated bays, estuary and dams emitted CH4 and N2O.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

In January 2011, severe floods hit South East Queensland. Our data shows an impact of the floods on GHG emissions from the Brisbane estuary. Three months before the floods, October 2010, dissolved CH4 concentration ranged between 200% and 1500% relative to its saturation level (equilibrium with atmosphere) while the dissolved N2O concentration varied between 250 and 400% of its saturation level. Seven months after the floods, in August 2011, both the dissolved CH4 and N2O concentrations increased substantially, reaching 500% – 2500% and 400 – 1100% of the respective saturation levels. This observed increase in the concentrations of CH4 and N2O are likely a result of decomposition of organic matter deposited during the floods.

New projects

ARC Linkage: GHG emission from wastewater collection systems Research Partners: Allconnex Water, DC Water (USA), Melbourne Water Corporation, South East Water, Unitywater and WA Water Corporation

In early 2011, the GHG team was awarded a new ARC linkage project “Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Sewers – Understanding, Modelling and Mitigation”. This project aims to address key data, knowledge and technology gaps in the understanding, quantification and mitigation of CH4 and N2O emissions from sewers. Extensive field studies will be conducted to collect data for CH4 and N2O emission quantification. Based upon the field and laboratory experimental data, sources and sinks of GHG will be identified. Innovative strategies to minimise CH4 and N2O emissions from sewer networks will be developed. The mathematical model already developed by the team will be enhanced to provide strong support to the industry for the quantification and mitigation of GHG emissions from sewers. ARC Discovery: Anaerobic methane oxidation coupled to denitrification Denitrification coupled to Anaerobic Methane Oxidation (DAMO) is a novel microbial process only discovered recently. This previously unrecognised metabolism that links the nitrogen and carbon cycles is potentially a significant sink of methane and could play an important role in the regulation of methane emissions from aquatic environments to atmosphere. In November 2011, a new ARC Discovery project “Establishing a missing link between the global nitrogen and carbon cycles – Anaerobic methane oxidation coupled to denitrification” was awarded

to the GHG team. In this world-first study, we will examine major potential habitats for DAMO organisms with the aim to identify these organisms, reveal their metabolic pathways and kinetic properties, establish their environmental niches, understand their interactions with other organisms and processes, and estimate their potential contributions to nitrogen and carbon conversions in various habitats.

Industry partners express how they benefit from the greenhouse gas research program “Allconnex Water (previously Gold Coast Water) has a long-term and fruitful partnership with the Advanced Water Management Centre. Our collaborative research on sewer management started in 2003 and has evolved into a national research program with more than 15 partners. The research has to date delivered highly valuable new knowledge, tools and technologies that are providing strong support to water utilities on sewer corrosion and odour management. We are very pleased to see that the research is being expanded to cover greenhouse gas emissions from sewers, and are proud to be a sponsor of the new ARC Linkage Project on “Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from sewers – Understanding, modelling and mitigation”. We are confident that the project will assist us to significantly reduce the overall carbon footprint of wastewater management. We are looking forward to three exciting years ahead.”

“The collaboration with the Advanced Water Management Centre on the ARC Linkage Project “Understanding and mitigating nitrous oxide emission from wastewater treatment plants” has enabled us to accurately quantify N2O emissions from two of our main wastewater treatment plants, with the on-line monitoring of the third plant to commence in early 2012. The project has also generated a substantial amount of in-depth knowledge on the production of N2O by both nitrification and denitrification, which provides strong support to our effort in reducing N2O emissions from our plants. The minimisation of fugitive greenhouse gas (particularly nitrous oxide and methane) emissions is critically important for WA Water Corporation to achieve its aim of zero net greenhouse gas emissions.” Craig Byers, WA Water Corporation

Bill Capati, Allconnex Water

AWMC Annual Report 2011

sewer

research Wastewater research in recent decades has focused on advanced treatment systems with sewers being considered mainly as hydraulic conveyance. Where problems have occurred, reactionary approaches have been adopted such as closing of odorous vents and treating odours at wastewater treatment plants or coating of corroded pipes.

AWMC research has developed greater fundamental understanding of the various chemical and biological processes that occur in sewers as well as new tools and technologies that enable the water industry to adopt a pro-active approach to corrosion and odour problems in sewers.

Simulation of sewers processes – SeweX model

The AWMC has developed an improved understanding of physical, chemical and biological processes occurring within sewers which has led to the development of an advanced mathematical model which is capable of predicting both spatial and temporal variations in sulfide concentration as well as other sewer parameters including GHG emissions. The SeweX model can be used for predicting sulfide generation in sewers to: • predict corrosion or odour “hot spots”, • select the most appropriate chemical considering specific conditions in a given sewer network, • identify appropriate dosing locations, • optimise chemical dosing rates, • evaluate the impact on wastewater treatment performance of chemical dosing in the sewer system by linking the SeweX model with wastewater treatment models. For more information on the SeweX model please see page 8.

Optimisation of chemical dosing

A recent survey carried out by the AWMC identified that there are five chemicals that are now popularly used by the Australian water industry: • magnesium hydroxide, • sodium hydroxide, • nitrate, • iron salts, and • oxygen On-line control strategies for optimisation of chemical dosing have been developed for all these popular chemicals used by industry using a level of sophistication of sensors appropriate to the application. Savings in chemical use of up to 50% have been predicted by the SeweX model. Field trials are now underway to verify the savings in chemical usage that can be achieved with the use of these on-line control strategies.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Development of new control methods The AWMC has developed several new technologies for control of odour and corrosion in sewers. These include the Free Nitric Acid (FNA) – based chemical dosing technology (commercialised by the new spin off company Cloevis, see page 8), and a method for in situ electrochemical production of sodium hydroxide and oxygen from wastewater.

FNA has a strong biocidal effect on the biofilm in sewer pipes that generates sulfide. This control method is very cost effective as the FNA can be dosed intermittently as a biocidal agent that has been found to reduce sulfide generation by more than 50% for at least seven days. An exciting new method for control of odours in sewers is by generation of chemicals such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) and oxygen within the sewer by electrochemical process. This method has enormous potential as the overall cost is much less than traditional chemical dosing methods and avoids the transport and storage of large amounts of hazardous chemicals.

Laboratory simulation of sewers

The AWMC has developed unique laboratory systems for controlled research into sewer processes, allowing a fundamental understanding of sewer processes to be developed. A laboratory method used by AWMC called the SCORe-CT can now be used to evaluate prospective odour control additives for sewers. This method relies on two identical laboratory sewer lines operated in parallel, both fed with domestic wastewater, one as the experimental line and the other as a control. The systems can be used to evaluate new odour control additives (chemicals or biological agents) under controlled laboratory conditions by removing the natural variations. Laboratory corrosion chambers have also been established at the AWMC with which the corrosion rates of concrete coupons or coating materials can be evaluated under a variety of wellcontrolled yet realistic conditions. These laboratory systems have been accepted by the major water utilities in Australia as providing reliable test results and they are recommending new products be tested in these laboratory systems prior to use in their sewers.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

water

recycling It all began with the “millennium drought”, before which abundant clean water was taken for granted. Scarce rain in South East Queensland and across most of the densely populated regions in the country increased pressure on our water supplies and awareness of the value of water. In addition to conservation measures, a diversification of water supply options and the concept of providing water fit-forpurpose are being gradually implemented across the country.

In 2008 the AWMC established the Water Recycling Research Program to investigate the recovery of what constitutes the biggest part of wastewater (>99%), water. The AWMC assembled a multi-disciplinary team to provide scientifically sound, independent expertise towards the responsible closing of the water cycle, focusing on treatment technology, water quality and the management and fate of contaminants in engineered systems. Since then, the water recycling research program has broadened the scope of its activities to other urban water sources such as drinking water and stormwater, continuing and extending its multidisciplinary approach and collaborations with other national and international research entities such as the ‘National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (EnTox)’ at The University of Queensland, the ‘Centre for Water Sensitive Cities’ at Monash University and the University of North Carolina (USA). Through a strategic five year, $3 million, collaboration between The University of Queensland, Veolia Water Australia and Seqwater, a team of researchers are investigating water quality and advanced water treatment processes producing purified recycled water focusing on: • membrane fouling, ageing and integrity, • micropollutant monitoring and management, • strategies to control the formation and removal of chloramine disinfection byproducts, and • treatment of reverse osmosis concentrates.

Complementary funding to achieve these objectives has been obtained from the Urban Water Security Research Alliance (UWSRA), the Australian Research Council, the USA-based WateReuse Research Foundation, and Queensland Health. Within projects funded directly through the UWSRA, the team investigates: • the contribution of hospitals to the overall micropollutant load in the urban water cycle through measurement and modelling, • treatment alternatives to membrane filtration such as ozone / biological activated carbon filtration, and • emerging and regulated disinfection by-products in drinking water in the South East Queensland water grid. Researchers from the water recycling research program are furthermore involved in other research projects such as the National Validation project (funded by Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence) and other ARC projects in addition to delivering successful consulting projects for the drinking water and the coal seam gas industries In 2011, our researchers and post-graduate students were invited to present their work at major national and international conferences in Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain and the USA with a total of 17 oral presentations. The team also published 15 peer-reviewed articles in leading international journals in 2011.

Project highlights Public health risk aspects of stormwater harvesting and reuse In Australia, 63% of the population now live in large cities and towns. Designing for resilience to the impacts of climate change, particularly ensuring secure water supplies and the protection of water environments, is an emerging challenge as growing urban communities seek to minimise their impact on already stressed water resources. Through a holistic approach to the management of urban stormwater, Monash University, The University of Queensland and the University of Western Australia have jointly taken on this challenge and designed a multidisciplinary research program called ‘Cities as Water Supply Catchments’ investigating multiple aspects of urban stormwater. In this context, the AWMC project on public health risk related to stormwater harvesting and reuse aims to: • collect raw stormwater quality data from a set of potential (or existing) stormwater harvesting sites, • provide experimental evidence for the impacts of climate and catchment characteristics upon the quality of urban stormwater,

AWMC Annual Report 2011

• develop methods to apply catchment audits and conceptual modelling to characterise a catchment, • development guidelines to implement efficient catchment monitoring, and • characterise health risks associated with ingestion of chemical hazards and enteric pathogens and the inhalation and dermal exposure of a number of selected pathogens. In 2011, the same team of universities in collaboration with over 70 industry partners proposed an extension of the scope of the multidisciplinary approach to encompass all urban water activitities in what has become the new ‘CRC for Water Sensitive Cities’.

information on targeted individual compounds, bioanalytical tools aim at estimating the overall toxic effect of the complex matrix of pollutants. Both approaches were used to investigate the fate of organic micropollutants in advanced treatment processes and for raw water characterisation of urban run-off and provided complementary information on potential unknown hazards. Now, Prof. Beate Escher is working on the design of bioanalytical tools targeting disinfection by-products in collaboration with Dr Maria José Farré.

Collaboration in focus Prof Beate Escher, The University of Queensland - EnTox The water recycling team has developed and maintained a close collaboration with the National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology and particularly Prof. Beate Escher. (pictured second right) Her team develops and applies innovative bioanalytical tools for water quality assessment. As opposed to chemical analysis which provides

AWMC Annual Report 2011

microbial ecology

Our research uses cutting-edge molecular tools, as well as more traditional microbiological techniques, to gain fundamental knowledge and understanding of complex, yet fascinating microbial processes. At the AWMC the microbial ecology team are involved in all research programs with many cross collaborations and here is just a snapshot of the research projects for 2011.

Applied microbial ecology Maximising the performance of engineered systems

Microorganisms occur in every habitat on earth, are responsible for many of the steps in the global water cycle and are drivers of many engineered systems. The AWMC microbial ecology team, partnered with the team at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, is building capacity and leading the way in understanding microorganisms at every level, from genes through to ecosystems.

Microbial communities are at the core of functionality of engineered systems such as anaerobic digesters (ADs) and bioelectrochemical systems (BESs). ADs use a diverse microbial consortia to convert organic matter into methane gas, which can be used as a fuel, (see page 12), BESs exploit electrochemically active microorganisms to catalyse oxidation and/or reduction reactions at anodic and cathodic electrodes, respectively. Key applications for BESs include electrical power generation (i.e. microbial fuel cells), bioremediation and production of (bio)chemicals. A wide range of electron donors, including organic compounds associated with wastewater, can be oxidised at the anode and facilitate cathodic production of compounds of interest e.g. hydrogen peroxide, methane or acetate. While modifications to the architecture of BESs and the materials used in their construction have led to significant advances in BES technologies, a better understanding of BES microbiology, is critical to achieve stable and optimal performance. We are using a range of state-of-the-art methods to investigate the diversity and functioning of microbial communities associated with engineered systems. Our research is focused on the identification of populations, genes and metabolites that confer improved system performance and it also contributes to the development and testing of fundamental ecological theories.

What is important for the formation and stability of aerobic granules? Aerobic granular activated sludge is an innovative technology that the AWMC team are adapting for the treatment of domestic wastewater. Aerobic granules have a much superior settling performance and a substantial operational advantage in comparison to the traditionally used floccular sludge. The current research is focused on optimising the operation of sequencing batch reactors for aerobic granules. In an interesting discovery we

AWMC Annual Report 2011

found that feeding the reactors at a slow rate causes loosely structured aggregates to form, rather than the desired densely packed granules. We hypothesise that this was due to different microbial populations having different kinetic affinities for the feed substrates. Currently we are using advanced profiling techniques to determine differences in the microbial communities and their function by analysing the protein and gene expression of these two granule types.

Unravelling microbially -induced concrete corrosion Sewer concrete corrosion (SCC), as discussed as part of the Sewer Research Program, is a significant problem with major economic and environmental impacts. It is a complex microbial community, which plays an important role in SCC, however mitigation of their activity has been limited to minimising the gaseous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) needed for the growth of sulfur-oxidising bacteria. In this research project we have been investigating the diversity of microorganisms found in the corrosion layers of concrete gravity sewer pipes, which will provide new directions for the development of optimised SCC mitigation strategies. Using advanced sequencing techniques, we have found a higher than expected microbial diversity in the SCC layers. We discovered these layers are dominated by Acidophilic organisms and a novel bacterium normally reported in acid mine drainage (AMD) communities. Samples from different sites around Australia (Sydney, Gold Coast and Melbourne) show that despite different environmental conditions and system infrastructure, a core group of organisms can be detected in SCC samples. Replicates along the length of a pipe show little variation between samples collected at the same

relative position in the circumference of the pipe, suggesting that the communities found in this environment are stable and depend on localised conditions rather than bulk gas phase conditions. This work is in collaboration with industry and research partners around Australia considering a wide range of sewer operational issues. The collective knowledge generated will ensure that Australian sewers are managed in the best environmentally and economically sound manner.

Characterisation of microbial communities involved in novel nutrient transformations Denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation (DAMO) is a microbial process whereby methane oxidation to carbon dioxide is coupled to the reduction of nitrate or nitrite to dinitrogen gas (N2). This process has potentially important implications for both the global carbon and nitrogen cycles and there are many obvious industrial uses for this process (see page 14). To date, two key groups of microorganisms have been shown to be involved in this process, a bacterium Candidatus “Methylomirabilis oxyfera” and an ANME-2D-like archaea. While “M. oxyfera” has been extensively studied, including the recent sequencing of its genome, a detailed understanding of the ANME-2D-like archaea is missing. We have sequenced the genome of this archaea organism using a novel single cell genomic approach and coupled this analysis to transcriptome sequencing to measure the genes expressed by this organism as it carries out the DAMO process. Additionally, we are studying a novel group of microorganisms believed to be responsible for anaerobic ammonia oxidation (Anammox) in concert with the DAMO archaea.

Enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) bioreactors as a model system for understanding phage-host dynamics Phages (bacterial and archaeal viruses) are ubiquitous in the environment and drive the dynamics and evolution of microbial communities through predation and horizontal gene transfer. The sheer diversity of phages in natural environments makes it difficult to study phage-host interactions at the community scale. The EBPR bioreactors dominated by Candidatus “Accumulibacter phosphatis” represent an ideal controlled engineered system to monitor phage-host interactions. Phage predation could be responsible for dramatic collapses in EBPR performance. To analyse the mechanisms of EBPR phage-bacteria interactions we are using metagenomics to sequence whole phage communities in a lab-scale EBPR reactor. In combination with this we are using PCR to study the activity of host defense genes against phages. We have discovered divergence in Candidatus “Accumulibacter phosphatis” metabolism and a vast diversity in their immune systems. Using cutting edge sequencing technology we can now sample the phage community from bioreactors and sequence the entire metagenome in less than a week allowing for near real-time analysis of phage dynamics.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

work shows that the PHA bioplastics synthesis has the capacity to utilise cheap and renewable carbon sources such as organic wastes, which are economically competitive with petroleumbased alternatives.

nutrient &

resource recovery The AWMC has built a strong reputation in nutrient removal technologies over the last 15 years. However, recent changes in the industry and continued global supply pressures with limited natural resources is demanding smarter solutions to reduce costs and recycle and reuse limited resources; valueadding is becoming important for waste and wastewater treatment processes. This research program has met these challenges head-on, leading the world in nutrient and resource recovery from domestic and industrial wastes and harnessing potential bioproducts from wastewater treatment processes.

Improving sustainability in the Australian agricultural sector Australia is one of the very few foodexporting countries in the world with about 50% of the food production going into export. Australia is also recognised for some of the world’s most sustainable and best managed agricultural practices. However, many producers face water supply pressures, have onsite nutrient management issues, face ever-increasing energy and fertiliser costs and have to meet new emissions requirements. This was the motivation for a major GRDC funded research project that is now in the technology transfer phase. Our technology enables alternative fertilisers to be manufactured from waste sources to relieve costs while recovering renewable energy in the form of biogas. Onsite nutrient management issues are then also addressed by turning nutrients-in-wastes into transportable high-value fertilisers for sale. Up to 20% of the national phosphorous and nitrogen market could be supplied by recovery from waste streams, providing quite attractive payback periods. The AWMC is now moving onto piloting this technology as well as developing novel processes that capture the “hard-toget” nutrients such as potassium. While the original research project focused on nutrient recovery at a farm scale, this has now moved to recovery of nitrogen and phosphorous from domestic and industrial sources (funded by Meat and Livestock Australia and federal funding through CRCs), which will reduce wastewater costs, while providing Australian agriculture with new revenue streams.

Next generation bioplastics PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) bioplastics are recognised as outstanding candidates to replace conventional plastics. Their mechanical properties are industrially relevant, they are produced from renewable resources, and they are truly biodegradable. Furthermore, our recent 22

AWMC Annual Report 2011

We have teamed up with two industrial partners, AnoxKaldnes Biopolymer of Sweden and Veolia Water Australia, UQ’s Centre for High Performance Polymers and the School of Chemical Engineering for an ARC funded project on using mixed microbial cultures to engineer commercial grade PHA. The aim is to advance mixed culture PHA technology by integrating state-of-the-art polymer characterisation and processing with mixed culture biopolymer production. In 2011 we made substantial progress towards achieving this aim, having now, for the first time, characterised the mechanical properties of mixed culture PHA and identified some of the key parameters that control them. Additionally, we studied the biodegradability of mixed culture PHA and found that the material completely degrades within a year or two. In the next phase of research we will be looking to tailor the properties of mixed culture PHA for specific markets.

Facilitating access to the algal economy – Sustainable fuel, material and food supply Algae are essentially biological solar panels that fix CO2 for growth and the production of intracellular storage compounds. They can be cultivated in simple open ponds, potentially with waste streams as the growth media. The products that can result from algal cultivation are numerous and diverse: human and animal food products, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals including substrates for biomaterial production, and bioenergy feedstock. As such, algae cultivation offers a multiple-benefit opportunity. In fact, an algal economy represents a sustainable fuel, material and food supply. At the AWMC we are identifying hotspots for sustainable algae industries in Queensland - regions where all the key resources, namely nutrients and inorganic carbon, are readily available as waste streams from other sectors. We are also teaming up with Origin Energy for an ARC funded project to assess the opportunity to make use of the algae that already grows in engineered systems as a renewable resource. Specifically, we are developing technology to stabilise the biomass harvested from coal seam gas water holding ponds, using composting to generate a renewable, high-nutrient organic fertiliser.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Microbial solar cells

(bio)electrochemical systems

When organic matter is replaced by light as a source of energy, microbial fuel cells turn into microbial solar cells. Some phototrophic organisms such as cyanobacteria have been proven to have the capacity to convert light-energy into a flow of electrons which they can divert extracellularly towards an anode during periods of intense illumination. This process has the advantage over microbial fuel cells that the energy source is ubiquitous and there is no reliance on an organic waste stream.

BESs provide state of the art treatment technology

Energy and water supply are two of the biggest challenges facing humanity in the coming decades. Ground breaking technology is needed to create novel methods of converting and conserving resources and (Bio)Electrochemical Systems (BESs) fit into this domain perfectly.

Electrochemical and bioelectrochemical reactions can be exploited for the removal of pollutants, the recovery of resources and the production of addedvalue chemicals from wastewaters and other waste materials. In these systems, electricity is either produced and exported, (in the case of microbial fuel cells and microbial solar cells) or used as a cheap energy source to drive otherwise unfavourable reactions. The separation of oxidation and reduction reactions, in two half-cells, prevents product contamination and parasitic systems losses, thus enabling high electron harvesting efficiencies and selective (bio)production of high-quality, concentrated chemicals even using wastewater in the process. The development of BESs requires expertise in electrochemistry, materials science, microbiology, engineering, and other fields. This versatility of techniques is reflected in the diversity of the BES team with 12 researchers and nine postgraduate students. Our experts are advancing four main research aims of developing fundamental knowledge, innovative treatment technologies, novel resource recovery approaches and sustainable (bio)production of valuable chemicals.

Fundamental investigations of electrochemically active biofilms Work is underway on several fronts to answer a number of fundamental questions on the nature of the electron transfers between microorganisms and electrodes. We are using a range of techniques including pyrotag sequencing, metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to link the genetic and taxonomic diversity to the overall community functionality. The team is investigating how the electrode surface properties affect the bacterial attachment activity, what compounds are involved in this electron transfer and using transcriptomics and proteomics to determine how extracellular electron transfer mechanism is expressed and regulated.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

(Bio)electrochemical systems provide a unique solution to some of the global water and wastewater treatment issues. These systems are able to outcompete traditional practices by providing more efficient, economical and compact treatment processes. Three such projects within the program addressing this are: Bioelectrochemical transformation and degradation of recalcitrant organic pollutants

The removal of recalcitrant organic pollutants such as textile dyes, agrochemicals or pharmaceuticals from wastewaters or soils is crucial for environmental and human health protection. We have focussed on toxic compounds such as nitrobenzene, widely used in chemical processes producing dyes, pharmaceuticals and solvents. A bioelectrochemical system is used for the cathodic reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline, with the aid of an adapted microbial community to increase the rate of reduction and to avoid the accumulation of toxic by-products. Treatment of reverse osmosis concentrates The capability of electrochemical oxidation to directly generate oxidants in situ without the need for reagents is a compelling advantage over advanced oxidation processes. When applied to the treatment of reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC) with a high concentration of chloride ions, electrochemical oxidation may lead to a generation of chlorinated byproducts. However, the AWMC team have found that novel boron-doped diamond (BDD) anodes are capable of minimising the electro-chlorination and achieve complete oxidation of a significant part of the organic matter in ROCs. Current investigations are focused on determining the optimum conditions of electrochemical oxidation for the degradation of trace organic contaminants without increasing the effluent toxicity.

Electrochemical sulfide removal from sewers Sewer corrosion, caused by hydrogen sulfide generation, is a major issue in sewer management. Existing strategies are expensive, complex and often come with drawbacks such as the loss of useful organic matter. The BES team has developed a novel process in which sulfide is oxidised electrochemically by means of in situ generated oxygen. In addition, to prevent microbial sulfide formation, the biofilm is regularly removed with a caustic shock, using the sodium hydroxide solution generated at the cathode of the same electrochemical system. Due to its ease of operation and lack of peripherals this electrochemical approach is very attractive for prospective adoption by the water industry.

Using electrochemistry to recover resources For many years the AWMC has studied various approaches for the recovery of resources from waste and wastewater. Ferric chloride (FeCl3) is commonly used in many treatment plants to precipitate phosphate and colloidal particles in the wastewater. This generates a chemical sludge consisting mostly of ferric phosphate and hydroxide, that not only has no significant value, but brings with it a high disposal cost and environmental footprint problems. The formed chemical sludge is potentially a good source of phosphate, a

precious fertiliser that is rapidly approaching overexploitation and depletion worldwide. Moreover, the recovery of the ferric component from the chemical sludge would enable its recycling within the process, thus further reducing costs for the water industry. A novel 2-stage process is being developed as part of an ARC Linkage Project whereby sulfide is first added to generate a ferrous sulfide precipitate and liberate the phosphate in solution, followed by an electrochemical reaction to oxidise of sulfide to sulfur on the anode, enabling the recovery of iron in solution while also regenerating the sulfide solution at the cathode. Cost estimates based on the experimental results indicate that this is a very attractive solution compared to the ongoing chemical use and sludge disposal option.

Bioelectrochemical systems produce â&#x20AC;&#x153;greenâ&#x20AC;? chemicals The BES team have developed a platform for the production of biofuels and biochemicals, using electrical current as a driver. In a nutshell, electricity can be used to drive bacterial conversion processes, enabling the production of chemicals. The advantage of this approach is a high production rate, reduced need for substrate and lower costs. Two recent projects within the program with this focus are shown below.

Biogas upgrade through biocathodic methane generation from CO2

Biogas is typically produced through anaerobic digestion and contains 50-70% CH4 and 30-50% CO2. A bioelectrochemical system is used to drive the reduction of residual CO2 to methane to boost the methane fraction of biogas, using the undegraded organics in the anaerobic digestion effluent as the energy source to drive the process, with a minor input of electricity provided to overcome the energy barrier to generate methane. Cathodic fermentations Fermentations are common biological processes exploited for the production of a plethora of chemicals. In this project we aim to increase the availability of reducing power to fermentative microorganisms by supplying electrons through a cathode. This is expected to shift the product distribution towards reduced compounds of interest, e.g. 1,3-propanediol from glycerol or butanol from glucose. Enhanced productivity of 1,3-propanediol in bio-cathodic processes has already been proven and work is underway to further improve the overall process.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Academic Staff

the awmc team

AWMC Advisory board

adjunct and honorary appointments

Professor Graham Schaffer, Chair Executive Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland

Adjunct Professor Jon Black CEO, Unitywater

Adjunct Professor Shaun Cox Managing Director, Melbourne Water Dr David Garman Executive Director, Environmental Biotechnology CRC Professor Peter Gray Director, Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland Dr Hung Nguyen Managing Director, MCQ Management Adjunct Professor Mark Pascoe CEO, International Water Centre AWMC Representation from Professor Jurg Keller, Professor Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Veronica Futo (COO)

Adjunct Professor G. Bill Capati Group Manager - Integrated Water Cycle Planning, Allconnex Water Adjunct Professor Shaun Cox Managing Director, Melbourne Water Adjunct Senior Lecturer Ben Fawcett Visiting Lecturer, International Water Centre Adjunct Professor Charles Foxall Environmental and Safety Manager - CUB Yatala Brewery, Carlton United Brewers Adjunct Professor Kin-Man Ho Technical Director, Kingsford Environmental, Hong Kong

Director Prof Jurg Keller • Biochemical and environmental engineering • Environmental biotechnology

Dr Phil Bond • Wastewater and environmental microbiology • Microbial community function analyses

Deputy Director Prof Zhiguo Yuan • Biological nutrient removal • Process modelling and control • Sewer management • Greenhouse gas mitigation

Dr Wolfgang Gernjak • Water recycling • Membrane fouling • Advanced oxidation processes • Solar energy for water mining

Prof Paul Lant (Head of School, Chemical Engineering, UQ) • Biological wastewater treatment • Wastewater and greenhouse gas interactions • Sustainable urban water stems

Prof Korneel Rabaey (AWMC & Ghent University) • Microbial ecology • Microbial fuel cells • (Bio)electrochemical systems

A/Prof Damien Batstone • Anaerobic digestion • Instrumentation, modelling, and control • Industrial wastewater treatment

Dr Gene Tyson (AWMC & Australian Centre for Ecogenomics) • Microbial ecology • Metagenomic and transcriptomic approaches for microbial community characterisation • Diversity and evolution

Academic Support & Administration

Adjunct Professor Ian Law Owner and Director, IBL Solutions Adjunct Fellow Michael Lawrence Principal Scientist, Office of the Water Supply Regulator, Department of Environment and Resource Management, Queensland Adjunct Research Fellow Christoph Ort Researcher, Urban Water Management, Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aqautic Science and Technology, Switzerland Adjunct Professor Mark Pascoe CEO, International Water Centre

Dr Veronica Futo Chief Operating Officer

Dr Sandra Hall Communications and Training Manager

Mrs Wendy Mahon Centre Administrator

Mr Ray Rootsey SCORe Project Manager

Mr Guy Clayton Administration Assistant

Mrs Vivienne Clayton Administration Officer

Miss Susan Cooke Administration Assistant

Miss Ana Esposo Personnel and RHD Officer

Mrs Hong Lee Administration Officer

Ms Jessica Nott Project Officer - Executive Assistant & Communications

Miss Esmeli Quevedo Baquero Finance Officer

(Until October)

Honorary Professor David Richardson Dean, Faculty of Science, University of East Anglia, UK Honorary Professor Mark van Loosdrecht Group leader Environmental Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Honorary Professor Willy Verstraete Head of the Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology, Ghent University, Belgium Adjunct Associate Professor Howard Weinberg Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences & Engineering, The University of North Carolina, USA

(From August)

(From October)

Adjunct Professor Richard Went Strategic Group Manager - Product and Asset Management, Allconnex Water Honorary Professor Peter Wilderer Director, Institute for Advanced Studies on Sustainability, Technical University Munich, Germany

AWMC Annual Report 2011

(From June)

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Analytical Research

Dr Beatrice Keller-Lehmann AWMC Lab Manager Environmental and water analysis techniques

Ms Susan Cooke

Scientific Officer (Until October)

Mr Nathan Clayton Scientific Officer (From October)

Ms Jianguang Li

Laboratory Assistant

Mr Ludovic Jourdin

Ms Hollie King

Scientific Officer Disinfection by-products

Research Scientist Life cycle assessment

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Bio)electrochemical systems (Until May)

Dr Chirag Mehta

Ms Julia Mueller

Lab Assistant Bioelectrochemical systems

Dr Yang Mu

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Bioelectrochemical systems

Dr Bing-Jie Ni

Research Assistant (Bio)electrochemical systems

Mr Joe Lane

Dr Eugena Li

Technical Services

Mr Ampon Chumpia

Technical Support Officer

Mrs Alyshia Lyons PC2 Lab Manager

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Anaerobic technologies

Research Team

Research Assistant Bilexys

Research Fellow Stormwater and health risk

Research Assistant Anaerobic technologies

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Purified recycled water

Dr Marc Pidou

Research Fellow Water recycling

Mr Ilje Pikaar

Research Officer (Bio)electrochemical systems

Dr Steven Pratt

Research Fellow Environmental biotechnology

Dr Jelena Radjenovic

Dr Paul Dennis

Dr Bogdan Donose

Dr Maria José Farré

Dr Stefano Freguia Research Fellow

Mr Guo Ren

Scientific Officer Sewer systems

Dr Julien Reungoat

Research Fellow Water reuse technologies

Dr René Rozendal

Research Fellow (Bio)Electrochemical systems (Until February)

Mr Thomas Sevior

(Bio)electrochemical systems

Dr Shihu Hu

Dr Keshab Sharma

Dr Fran Slater

Mr Stephen Anderson

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Bio)electrochemical systems

Research Fellow Water recycling

Research Fellow Purified recycled water

Dr Ramon Ganigué Pagès Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Dr Huoqing Ge Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Ms Christy Grobbler Research Assistant

Mr Mike Imelfort

Dr Paul Jensen

Sewer systems

Research Officer Bioinformatics

Dr Rupak Aryal

Mr Chris Carney

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Anaerobic technologies

Research Fellow Anaerobic technologies

Dr Kristell Le Corre

Postdoctoral Research Fellow N2O emissions

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Purified recycled water

Research Officer Full scale process consultant

Research Fellow Process modelling

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Microbial ecology (Until December)

Dr Gatut Sudarjanto

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Odour control in sewer systems (Until October)

Dr Stephan Tait

Anaerobic technologies

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Greenhouse gases

Dr Guangming Jiang

Dr Anthony Joseph

Dr Bernardino Virdis

Mr Shane Watts

Dr Ursula Werner

Dr Liu Ye

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Odour control in sewer systems

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Corrosion control in sewer systems

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Bio)electrochemical systems

Senior Research Officer Aerobic granular systems

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Microbial biotransformations

Research Fellow Anaerobic technologies (From February)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow N2O emissions

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Angela Johnstone, PhD Student

Ronald Musenze, PhD Student

Extracellular electron transfer in engineered environments - a genomic and proteomic approach

Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Ursula Werner and Adjunct Prof James Udy (Healthy Waterways)

(withdrawn December)

Advisors: Prof Korneel Rabaey and Dr Phil Bond

Natacha Juste-Poinapen, PhD Student

Yuting Pan, PhD Student

Advisors: A/Prof Damien Batstone, Dr Bernardino Virdis, Dr Mark Turner (School of Land, Crop and Food Science) and Prof Korneel Rabaey

Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Liu Ye

Steven Kenway, PhD Student

Lai Peng, PhD Student

Advisors: Prof Paul Lant and Prof Anthony Priestley (CSIRO)

Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Liu Ye

Microbiology and genetics of interspecies electron transfer

Postgraduate Students Monica Arcos Hernandez, PhD Student Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates Advisors: Prof Paul Lant and Dr Steven Pratt

Urban metabolism and the water energy nexus

Katrin Doederer, PhD Student

Assessment of the impact of biological pre-treatment on UF and RO fouling and micropollutants rejection

Advisors: Dr Wolfgang Gernjak, Prof Jurg Keller and Prof Jean-Philippe Croué (WDRC King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and Université de Poitiers)

Arseto Bagastyo, PhD Student

Electro-oxidative treatment of reverse osmosis concentrates Advisors: Dr Korneel Rabaey, Dr Jelena Radjenovic, and A/Prof Damien Batstone

Advisors: Dr Wolfgang Gernjak and Dr Maria José Farré

Philip Keymer, PhD Student

Fangzhou (Ark) Du, PhD Student

Advisors: Prof Paul Lant and Dr Steven Pratt

Metal removal and recovery using (bio)electrochemical processes Advisors: Prof Jurg Keller and Dr Stefano Freguia

Preethi Gopalan, PhD Student

Least cost applications of anaerobic digestion to livestock wastes Advisors: A/Prof Damien Batstone and Dr Paul Jensen

Ying Yu Law, PhD Student

Understanding fugitive greenhouse gas emission from wastewater systems for reliable accounting and effective mitigation Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Katie De Jong (SKM) and Prof Paul Lant

Yiwen Liu, PhD Student

Understanding greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater collection systems

Lauren Bragg, PhD Student – CSIRO

Development of statistical and computational methods for the analysis of metagenomic sequence data Advisors: Dr Gene Tyson, Prof Mark Morrison (CSIRO) and Dr Glenn Stone (CSIRO)

Christy Grobbler, PhD Student

The mechanisms of electron transfer towards microorganisms Advisors: Dr Phil Bond, Dr Bernardino Virdis, Dr Falk Harnisch (Technische Universität Braunschweig) and Prof Korneel Rabaey

Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Keshab Sharma

Investigation of microbial biofilms responsible for sewer corrosion Advisors: Dr Phil Bond, Prof Jurg Keller and Dr Gene Tyson

Kun Guo, PhD Student

Biofuels production from bioelectrochemical systems Advisors: Dr Stefano Freguia, Prof Jurg Keller and Prof Korneel Rabaey

Microalgal solar cells for the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity Advisors: Dr Stefano Freguia and Dr Bernardino Virdis

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Dang Ho, PhD Student

High-rate methanogenesis

Hasina Pervin, PhD Student – EBCRC

Microbial community and function analysis during optimisation of small to medium scale organic solid stabilisation Advisors: Dr Phil Bond and A/Prof Damien Batstone

Ilje Pikaar, PhD Student (Submitted August) Electrochemical abatement of sulfide Advisors: Prof Korneel Rabaey, Prof Jurg Keller and Dr René Rozendal (Paques BV)

Marie-Laure Pype, PhD Student

Development of surrogates to monitor reverse osmosis membrane integrity and performance during filtration of pre-treated secondary effluent Advisors: Dr Wolfgang Gernjak, Dr Dominique Patureau (INRA-LBE) and Dr Nathalie Wery (INRA-LBE)

Maxime Rattier, PhD Student

Advisors: A/Prof Damien Batstone and Dr Fran Slater

Advisors: Dr Wolfgang Gernjak, Dr Julien Reungoat and Prof Jurg Keller

Elena Mejia Likosova, PhD Student

Ying Shi, PhD Student

Iron and phosphorus recovery from ferric precipitation sludge

Libertus Darus, PhD Student

Nitrous oxide production during ammonium oxidization

Yang (Kenn) Lu, PhD Student

Characterisation and modification of fermentation microbial in anaerobic granules

Barry Cayford, PhD Student

Understanding and mitigating nitrous oxide emission from wastewater treatment plants

Formation and fate of regulated and emerging disinfection by-products during high quality recycled water production

Understanding nutrient transformations for algal biodiesel production in wastewater fed systems

Chrystelle Ayache, Cotutelle PhD Student

Understanding and mitigation of nitrous oxide and methane emissions from waterways

Advisors: Dr Stefano Freguia and Prof Jurg Keller

Biological activated carbon filtration for tertiary treatment of wastewater

Understanding fugitive greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater systems for reliable accounting and effective mitigation Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Shihu Hu

Advisors: A/Prof Damien Batstone and Dr Paul Jensen

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Connor Skennerton, PhD Student

Inka Vanwonterghem, PhD Student

Advisors: Dr Gene Tyson and Prof Phil Hugenholtz (ACE)

Advisors: Dr Gene Tyson, Dr Paul Jensen and Prof Korneel Rabaey

Tomas Storck, PhD Student

Ecology and evolution of phage-host interactions in a model ecosystem

Community evolution and functional dynamics in anaerobic digesters

International Visiting Academics Dr Cullen Buie Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, April

Prof Ligy Philip Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India, July

Dr Oriol Gutierrez Catalan Institute for Water Research, Spain, July - October

Dr Cristian Picioreanu Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, May - June

Marieska Verawaty, PhD Student â&#x20AC;&#x201C; EBCRC

Dr Falk Harnisch TU Braunschweig, Germany, February - September

Dr Maite Pijuan Catalan Institute for Water Research, Spain, July - October

Advisors: A/Prof Damien Batstone, Dr Bernardino Virdis and Dr Cristian Picioreanu (TU Delft)

Advisors: Dr Phil Bond, Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Maite Pijuan (Catalan Institute for Water Research)

Dr Nicole Knight Griffith University, Australia, January - July

Dr Pengzhe Sui Kyoto University, Japan, October 2010 - March 2011

Katrin Sturm, PhD Student

Qilin Wang, PhD Student

Dr Juqing Lou Zhejiang Gongshang University, China, October 2010 - October 2011

Dr Xinfeng Xiao Shandong University of Science and Technology, China, April 2010 - March 2011

Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Ursula Werner

Advisor: Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Liu Ye and Dr Guangming Jiang

Jing Sun, PhD Student

Xu Zhou, PhD Student

Lagrangian modelling of microbial interspecies electron transfer

Nitrous oxide and methane emissions from South East Queensland waterways

Understanding nitrous oxide emissions from South East Queensland waterways Advisors: Prof Zhiguo Yuan, Dr Shihu Hu and Dr Keshab Sharma

Xiaoyan Sun, PhD Student

Identification of controlling factors for the corrosion rate of concrete sewerage systems Advisors: Prof Jurg Keller, Dr Phil Bond and Dr Antony Joseph

A novel aerobic granular sludge for domestic wastewater treatment system

The investigation for methane formation, emissions and mitigation from wastewater

Experimental investigation and modelling on methane dependent desulfuration process in wastewater treatment Advisor: Prof Zhiguo Yuan and Dr Guangming Jiang

Zuhaida Mohd Zaki, PhD Student

Regulation of mixed culture fermentation Advisors: A/Prof Damien Batstone and Dr Steven Pratt

International visiting students Ms Eva Andresen Aalborg University, Denmark, July 2010 - February 2011 Mr Rafael Asshauer Technical University of Berlin, Germany, October 2011 - April 2012 Mr William Braff Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, April

Ms Xiaoxin Liu College of Information Science and Engineering, North Eastern University, China, October 2011 - March 2013 Ms Yiqi Liu South China University of Technology, China, October 2011 April 2013

Mr Haoyi Chen Harbin Institute of Technology, China, March 2011 - March 2012

Mr Florian Martin University of Applied Sciences Giessen, Germany, October 2010 - February 2011

Mr Jindong Chen Jiangnan University, China, October 2010 - March 2012

Ms Melanie Mitchell ESIL Polytech Marseille, France, February - August

Ms Casey Doolette The University of Adelaide, Australia, September - November

Mr Tan Quach Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, September 2010 - February 2011

Mr Andre Horn Technical University of Berlin, Germany, March - August

Ms Mi Zhou Dalian University of Technology, China, September 2010 - June 2012

UNDERGRADUATE AND COURSEWORK STUDENTS Siew Herng (Stan) Chan Completed November 2011 Bachelor of Environmental Science

Roslinda Mohamed Completed November 2011 Bachelor of Biotechnology

Di Wu Completed 2012 Master of Biotechnology (Advanced)

Temporal monitoring of an adaptive immune system in Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis

Ancient aboriginal artwork microbial communities (ACE project)

Effects of wastewater composition on sulphide and methane generation in sewer pipes

Advisors: Dr Gene Tyson and Dr Florent Angly (ACE) Jiayu Gao Completed June 2011 Master of Engineering Science Impact of nitrate addition on methanogenic activities and greenhouse gases emission in a sewer reactor Advisor: Dr Guangming Jiang Candice Heath Completed November 2011 Bachelor of Science Microbial buffering of the Great Barrier Reef (ACE project) Advisor: Dr Gene Tyson

Advisors: Dr Gene Tyson and Dr Jack Pettigew (QBI) Sharifah Syed Mohamed Completed November 2011 Bachelor of Biotechnology (Bioprocess Technology)

Advisor: Dr Keshab Sharma Yunkit Yeoh Completed November 2011 Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours)

Detection of abundant proteins expressed during anaerobic digestion of biosolids

Microbial communities in bioelectrochemical systems converting glycerol to 1,3-propanediol

Advisors: Dr Phil Bond and Dr Fran Slater

Ahmad Radhzlan Bin Rosli Completed November 2011 Bachelor of Biotechnology (Hons) Majoring in Microbial Biotechnology The Molecular Mechanisms of Free Nitrous Acid (FNA) Inhibition on Biofilm Activity of a Denitrifying Heterotrophic Bacterium Advisors: Dr Phil Bond and Dr Fran Slater

AWMC Annual Report 2011

INCOME University Income

University Allocation (Postgraduate supervision plus research quantum)

$774,905

Postgraduate Tuition Fee Income

$200,309

UQ Research Start Up Fund Grants

$48,000

UQ Early Career Research Grants

$99,152

UQ External Support Enabling Grants

$137,737

$1,385,537

Salary Support

UQ Strategic Salary Support (including fellowships)

$478,860

Resteach (teaching payment)

$178,329

UQ Strategic Support - Water Recycling Research Project

$150,000

UQ Strategic Support - Centre for Microbial Electrosynthesis (CEMES)

$455,000

Environmental Biotechnology CRC Projects

$136,545

ARC and Smart State Fellowships

$360,675

$1,759,409

Scholarship Support

UQ Scholarships Support

$297,595

Environmental Biotechnology CRC

$58,055 $48,015

Other/External Scholarships

$416,186

Grants and Collaborative Research ARC Discovery Grants

$1,100,335

ARC Linkage Grants

$721,238

ARC Linkage - Industry Partner Contributions

$1,119,750

Chief Investigators

Funding body/partners * see abbreviation list below

Novel concept for wastewater treatment with integrated power production based on microbial fuel cells

2006 - 2011

J.Keller, Z. Yuan & W.Verstraete (Ghent Univ., Belgium)

ARC Discovery

Novel microbial technologies for improved treatment of industrial wastewater

2007 - 2011

J.Keller, Z.Yuan & P.Bond

DIISR International Science, Linkages/European Union

Extracellular electron transfer in bio-electrochemical systems

2008 - 2011

K.Rabaey, P.Bond, K.Nealson (Univ. ARC Discovery - Australian of Southern California, USA), N.Boon Postdoctoral Fellowship (Rabaey) (Ghent Univ., Belgium) & S.Turner (Univ. Auckland, New Zealand)

Next generation solids stabilisation

2008 - 2011

D.Batstone, P.Bond & P.Jensen

Optimal management of corrosion and odour problems in sewer systems

2008 - 2013

Queensland Government Smart State Research Industry Partnerships Program, EBCRC, MLA

Z.Yuan, J.Keller, P.Bond, K.Rabaey & ARC Linkage with 16 Partners nine other chief/partner investigators

Water recycling research program

2008 - 2013

W.Gernjak & J.Keller

Veolia Water Australia, Water Secure / Seqwater

ANAMIX:A two year exchange programme on ANAerobic MIXed cultures to study and improve biological generation of chemicals and energy carriers from organic residues generated by agro-industrial activity

2009 - 2011

D.Batstone

Australian Academy of Science

$226,374

DIISR International Science Linkage Grants

$256,086

International Grants

$104,752

Environmental Biotechnology CRC Research Projects

$221,382

Bioelectrochemical systems for the production of butanol from waste organics or renewable power

2009 - 2011

K.Rabaey

UQ Foundation Research Excellence Awards

Cities as Water Supply Catchments Project

$210,000

Fertiliser from waste: Phase 1

GRDC

$502,500

2009 - 2011

D.Batstone

Urban Water Security Research Alliance Water Recycling Research Program (Veolia Water & Seqwater)

$412,500

ARC Discovery

$318,018

2009 - 2012

Y.Mu & J.Keller

Grain R&D Corporation

Biotransformation and biodegradation of organic nitrogen compounds from wastewater in bio-electrochemical systems

Consultancies, Conferences and Courses

$880,432 $87,998

$9,841,830

EXPENDITURE Expenses

Consumables Travel

Electrochemical treatment of problematic water recycle waste streams

2009 - 2012

K.Rabaey, Y.Mu, R.Rozendal, D.Batstone, J.Keller, J.Mueller (EnTox), W.Gernjak, Y.Poussade (Veolia Water Australia) & B.Tan (QLD Health)

ARC Linkage, Veolia Water Australia, Magneto Special Anodes, Queensland Health and UWSRA

Novel aerobic granular sludge process for optimal wastewater treatment

2009 - 2012

P.Bond

Queensland Government Smart State Fellowships, EBCRC, Waste Technologies of Australia

Understanding and mitigating nitrous oxide emission from wastewater treatment plants

2009 - 2012

Z.Yuan, K.Jong (SKM) & P.Lant

ARC Linkage, Water Corporation, Water Secure / Seqwater, Melbourne Water Corporation ARC Discovery

$6,280,698

Total Income

2009

$1,416,665

2010

$1,114,924

2011

$1,389,152

$419,339

$471,378

$420,877

$3,258,602

$3,782,407

$4,021,305

Understanding fugitive greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater systems for reliable accounting & effective mitigation

2009 - 2012

Z.Yuan, P.Lant & D.Richardson (UEA, UK)

General Salaries

$493,345

$841,859

$1,061,908

Interspecies electron transfer in biotechnology

2009 - 2013

Scholarships

$614,043

$447,415

$416,186

Equipment

$549,472

$707,115

$600,686

D.Batstone, K.Rabaey, C.Picioreanu ARC Discovery - Australian Research (TU Delft, The Netherlands) & A.Stams Fellowship (Batstone) (Wageningen Univ., The Netherlands)

$62,987

$75,370

$34,238

2010 - 2011

Z.Yuan, G.Tyson & S.Hu

Seqwater

$671,785

$1,300,355

$1,501,282

Diversity and distribution of methanogenic and methanotrophic microorganisms in the suboxic transition zones of Little Nerang EBCRC P4.22 Granulation

2010 - 2011

J.Keller

EBCRC

Effect of low flow in sewers on blockages, corrosion and downstream processes

2010 - 2011

Z.Yuan, S.Hu & J.Keller

Sydney Water Corporation

Academic and Research Salaries

Appointment Expenses Payments to collaborative partners Total Expenditure

$7,486,238

OPERATING RESULT

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Duration

Australian Industry Contributions

Prizes

Grant Title

$12,521

Commonwealth Scholarships - APA/APAI/ARC

REPORT

RESEARCH GRANTS

$79,349

Internal Recoveries and Transfers

FINANCIAL

2011 ACTIVE

$46,004

Major Equipment and Infrastructure Grant

$8,740,823

$9,445,634

$396,196

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Grant Title

Duration

Chief Investigators

Funding body/partners

Grant Title Multichannel potentiostats to drive microbial and electrochemical production processes

Hydrogen peroxide production through bioelectrochemical conversion of wastewater organics

2010 - 2011

R.Rozendal

UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Impact of oxygen on methane production in sewer systems

2010 - 2011

R.Ganigué Pagès

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Model based methane prediction in full-scale wastewater collection systems

2010 - 2011

K.Sharma, Z.Yuan & J.Keller

Brown and Caldwell

A generalised physiochemical framework

2010 - 2012

D.Batstone

UQ Collaboration and Industry Engagement Fund, QUU, Veolia Water Australia

(Bio)electrochemical recovery of caustic and polysulphide compounds from industrial wastewater

2010 - 2012

R.Rozendal, K.Rabaey & C.Smeal (Gelita)

Gelita Australia (Researcher in Business grant)

Cities as water supply catchments

2010 - 2012

W.Gernjak, J.Keller, P.Lant & B.Escher (EnTox) with several partners from Monash Univ.

National Water Commission, Victorian Smart Water Fund, Monash Univ. and funding from more than 15 industry partners

Enhancing ethanol production in Escherichia coli through electrochemical stimulation

2010 - 2012

B.Virdis

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Influence of the composition of effluent organic matter on the adsorption of micropollutants in conventionally treated wastewater

2010 - 2012

J.Reungoat

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Optimisation of biological pre-treatment to limit microfiltration/ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis fouling and maximise retention of organic contaminants

2010 - 2012

J.Keller & W.Gernjak

DIISR - International Science Linkages French-Australian Science and Technology Program

Urban Water Security Research Alliance - Evaluation methods for evidence-based total water cycle management planning

2010 - 2012

P.Lant & J.Lane

UWSRA

Urban Water Security Research Alliance - Enhanced treatment

2010 - 2012

J.Reungoat & J.Keller

UWSRA

Urban Water Security Research Alliance - Assessment of regulated and emerging disinfection by-products in South East Queensland drinking water

2010 - 2012

M.José Farré, W.Gernjak & J.Keller

UWSRA

Urban Water Security Research Alliance - Hospital wastewater

2010 - 2012

K.Le Corre, W.Gernjak, J.Keller & H.Stratton (Griffith Univ.)

UWSRA

Simultaneous recovery of phosphorus and scale control in secondary effluent membrane filtration

2010 - 2012

M.Pidou

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Small medium scale organic solids stabilisation

2010 - 2012

D.Batstone & P.Jensen

EBCRC

The effect of free nitrous acid on anaerobic metabolism of PAOs and GAOs in EBPR system

2010 - 2012

L.Ye

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

UV/H2O2 Oxidation: study of reaction mechanisms and structural elucidation of degradation products of selected pharmaceuticals and pesticides

2010 - 2012

J.Radjenovic

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Validation and development of PigBal model stage 2

2010 - 2012

D.Batstone & A.Skerman (DEEDI)

DEEDI and APL

Functional screens for novel cellulases

2010 - 2013

K.Rabaey, G.Tyson, P.Hugenholtz (ACE) & P.Jensen

CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship Cluster (Australian National University)

Nitrous oxide and methane emissions from South East Queensland waterways and influence of wastewater discharges

2010 - 2013

Z.Yuan, R.Zeng (USTC), J.Keller, ARC Linkage: Healthy Waterways E.Abal (Healthy Waterways) & J.Udy Pty Ltd, Seqwater (Seqwater)

The only constant is change: Ecology and evolution of phage-host interactions in a model ecosystem

2010 - 2014

G.Tyson & P.Hugenholtz (ACE)

ARC Discovery - QEII Fellowship (Tyson)

D.Batstone, P.Hugenholtz (ACE), K.Rabaey, G.Tyson, P.Bond, P.Dennis & Z.Yuan

UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure

Anaerobic workstations for experimental and pure culture research

2011

Instrumentation for elemental analysis of geological and environmental samples

2011

J.Keller (led by School of Earth Sciences)

UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure

GC-IRMS for stable isotope ratio analysis of complex gas and liquid mixtures

2011

G.Tyson & D.Batstone (led by School of Earth Sciences)

UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure

Mass spectrometer for biomolecule discovery, structural analysis and quantification.

2011

P.Bond (led by School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences)

UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure

NatVal - the map to an accepted workable national validation framework for water reuse schemes

2011

W.Gernjak & B.Escher (EnTox)

AWRCOE & WQRA

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Duration 2011

Chief Investigators

Funding body/partners

K.Rabaey, J.Keller, L.Nielsen (AIBN), S.Freguia, J.Radjenovic, D.Batstone, J.Kroemer (AIBN) & Z.Yuan

UQ Major Equipment and Infrastructure

A novel method for reducing sludge production in biological wastewater treatment plants

2011 - 2012

L.Ye

UQ Early Career Researcher

Characterisation of the koala gut microbiome for Australian biofuel precursor production

2011 - 2012

P.Dennis

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Detection of biofoulants based on functionalised microcantilevers

2011 - 2012

B.Donose

UQ Early Career Researcher

Electrochemical and simultaneous generation of caustic and oxygen from sewage for odour and corrosion control in sewers

2011 - 2012

Z.Yuan

UQ FirstLink Scheme

Energy and nutrient analysis on individual waste streams

2011 - 2012

D.Batstone & P.Jensen

AMPC & MLA

Photosynthetic microbial fuel cells for direct conversion of sunlight to electricity

2011 - 2012

S.Freguia

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Reductive electrochemical remediation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) using quinone mediators

2011 - 2012

J.Radjenovic

UQ Early Career Researcher

Resistance of enriched sulfate-reducing bacteria culture to acidified nitrite

2011 - 2012

G.Jiang

UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund

Testing the removal of organic compounds from highly saline water

2011 - 2012

W.Gernjak & S.Pratt

Origin Energy Resources Limited

High rate aerobic treatment combined with anaerobic digestion and anammox

2011 - 2013

J.Keller & D.Batstone

AMPC & MLA

Novel concepts for bioelectrochemical generation of renewable fuels and chemicals from wastewater

2011 - 2013

J.Keller, R.Rozendal, B.Ladewig (Monash Univ.), A.Stams (Wageningen Univ., The Netherlands), U.Schroeder (Technical Univ. Braunschweig, Germany) & M.Wessling (Univ. of Twente, The Netherlands)

ARC Discovery

Regulated and emerging disinfection by-products during the production of high quality recycled water

2011 - 2013

M.José Farré, H.Weinberg (Univ. of North Carolina, USA) & C.Robillot (Seqwater)

WateReuse Research Foundation, Veolia Water Australia & Water Secure / Seqwater

Sustainable water treatment technologies for inorganic pollutants

2011 - 2013

J.Keller

Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellowship

Fate of micropollutants in water recycling: Influence of dissolved organic matter

2011 - 2014

W.Gernjak (led by EnTox)

ARC Linkage: WaterSecure/Seqwater, Veolia Water Australia & WQRA

Hydrogen control for optimisation of methane production from livestock waste (HYCON)

2011 - 2014

D.Batstone & A.Feilber (Aarhus Univ., Denmark)

Aarhus Univ.

Integrated agroindustrial wastewater treatment and nutrient recovery

2011 - 2014

D.Batstone, P.Jensen & M.Pidou

AMPC & MLA

Iron and phosphorus recovery from ferric precipitation sludge

2011 - 2014

J.Keller, R.Rozendal, K.Rabaey, ARC Linkage - Seqwater & Veolia Y.Poussade (Veolia Water Australia) & Water Australia C.Robillot (Seqwater)

Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from sewers Understanding, modelling and mitigation

2011 - 2014

Z.Yuan, G.Tyson, K.Sharma, B.Ni & S.Murthy (DC Water, USA)

ARC Linkage: Allconnex Water, District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (USA), Melbourne Water Corporation & South East Water Limited

Methane driven denitrification: An innovative technology enabling greenhouse gas neutral wastewater treatment

2011 - 2014

B.Ni & Z.Yuan

UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Fertilizer from waste phase II

2011 - 2015

D.Batstone & C.Mehta

GRDC

Modelling of flows in a novel superheated steam

2011 - 2012

D.Batstone & R.Gilbert

Research in Business Grant

Abbrevation Guide: ACE - Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, UQ; AIBN - Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, UQ; AMPC- Australian Meat Processor Corporation; ANU - Australian National University; Australian Pork Limited (APL); ARC - Australian Research Council; AWRCOE - Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence; CRC - Cooperative Research Centre; DEEDI - Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, Queensland Government; DIISR - Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Australian Government; EBCRC - Environmental Biotechnology CRC; EnTox - National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology, UQ; GRDC - Grains Research and Development Corporation; MLA - Meat and Livestock Australia; QUU - Queensland Urban Utilities; RDC - Research and Development Corporation; SEQ - South East Queensland; SKM - Sinclair Knight Merz; UEA - University of East Anglia, UK; UQ - The University of Queensland; USTC - University of Technology and Science of China; UWSRA - Urban Water Security Research Alliance; WQRA - Water Quality Research Australia Ltd

AWMC Annual Report 2011

2011

publicationS Thesis Ge, H. (2011) Characterization of temperature phased anaerobic digestion for organic solids stabilization, PhD, Conferred Pikaar, I. (2011) Development of high rate electrochemical methods for the removal of sulfide from wastewater, PhD, Conferred Pipe-Martin, C. (2011) Biological processes for dissolved organic carbon removal, MPhil, Conferred

Peer reviewed publications Angelidaki, I., Karakashev, D., Batstone, D.J., Plugge, C.M. and Stams, A.J. (2011) Biomethanation and its potential, Methods in Enzymology, 494(16): 327 - 351 Angly, F. and Tyson G.W. (2011) Are divergent viral communities controlling individual gut microbiota? Medecine Sciences, 27(3): 229 - 231 Aryal, R., Baral, B., Vigneswaran, S., Naidu, R. and Loganathan, P. (2011) Seasonal influence on urban dust PAH profile and toxicity in Sydney, Australia, Water Science and Technology, 63(10):2238 - 2243 Aryal, R., Vigneswaran, S., Loganathan, P., Kandasamy, J. and Mohammed, T. (2011) Hydrous iron oxide for removal of inorganic contaminants in simulated stormwater: A batch sorption kinetics, Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, 28(8):1706 - 1712 Backe, W.J., Ort, C., Brewer. A.J. and Field, J.A. (2011) Analysis of androgenic steroids in environmental waters by largevolume injection liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, Analytical Chemistry, 83(7):2622 - 2630 Bagastyo, A., Keller, J. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Size fractionation characterisation of removed organics in reverse osmosis concentrates by ferric chloride, Water Science and Technology, 63(9): 1795 - 1800

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Bagastyo, A., Keller, J., Poussade, Y. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Characterisation and removal of recalcitrants in reverse osmosis concentrates from water reclamation plants, Water Research, 45(7): 2415 - 2427 Bagastyo, A., Radjenovic, J., Mu, Y., Rozendal, R.A., Batstone, D.J. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical oxidation of reverse osmosis concentrate on mixed metal oxide (MMO) titanium coated electrodes, Water Research, 45(16): 4951 - 4959 Batstone, D.J, Jensen, P.D. and Ge H. (2011) Biochemical treatment of biosolids – Emerging technologies: Pre-treatment methods such as biological processes can improve performance economically, Water, 38(3): 90 - 93 Batstone, D.J., Pavlostathis, S.G., Jensen, P.D. and Angelidaki, I. (2011) Comment on “Parameter Identification and Modeling of the Biochemical Methane Potential of Waste Activated Sludge”, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(17): 7596 - 7597 Blanco, J., Alarcón, D., Guilĺn, E. and Gernjak, W. (2011) The AQUASOL system: Solar collector field efficiency and solar-only mode performance, Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, 133: 011009-1 - 011009-6 Cheng, M., Cook, A., Fukushima, T. and Bond, P.L. (2011) Evidence of compositional differences between the extracellular and intracellular DNA of a granular sludge biofilm, Letters in Applied Microbiology, 53(1): 1 - 7 Cord-Ruwisch, R., Law, Y. and Cheng, K.Y. (2011) Ammonium as a sustainable proton shuttle in bioelectrochemical systems, Bioresource Technology, 102(20): 9691 - 9696 Crichton, M.L., Donose, B.C., Chen, X., Raphael, A.P., Huang, H. and Kendall, M.A. (2011) The viscoelastic, hyperelastic and scale dependent behaviour of freshly excised individual skin layers, Biomaterials, 32(20): 4670 - 4681 De Haas, D. and Lane, J. and Lant, P. (2011) Life cycle assessment of the Gold Coast urban water system, Water, 38(8): 57 - 64 De Haas, D. and Lane, J. (2011) Long-term trends and opportunities for managing regional water supply and wastewater greenhouse gas emissions, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(12): 5434 - 5440 Desloover, J., Puig, S., Virdis, B., Clauwaert, P., Boeckx, P., Verstraete, W. and Boon, N. (2011) Biocathodic nitrous oxide removal in bioelectrochemical systems, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(24): 10557 - 10566

Escher, B.I., Lawrence, M., Macova, M., Mueller, J.F., Poussade, Y., Robillot, C., Roux, A. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Evaluation of contaminant removal of reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation in full-scale operation by combining passive sampling with chemical analysis and bioanalytical tools, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(12): 5387 - 5394 Farré, M.J., Doederer, K., Hearn, L., Poussade, Y., Keller, J. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Understanding the operational parameters affecting NDMA formation at advanced water treatment plants, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 185(2-3): 1575 - 1581 Farré, M.J., Keller, J., Holling, N., Poussade, Y. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Occurrence of N-nitrosodimethylamine precursors in wastewater treatment plant effluent and their fate during ultrafiltrationreverse osmosis membrane treatment, Water Science and Technology, 63(4): 605 - 612

Gutierrez, O., Sudarjanto, G., Sharma, K. R., Keller, J. and Yuan, Z. (2011) SCORe-CT: A new method for testing effectiveness of sulfide-control chemicals used in sewer systems, Water Science and Technology, 6(12): 2 - 2

Farré, M.J., Reungoat, J., Argaud, F., Rattier, M., Keller, K. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Fate of N-nitrosodimethylamine, trihalomethane and haloacetic acid precursors in tertiary treatment including biofiltration, Water Research, 45(17): 5695 - 5704

Hall, M.R., West, J., Sherman, B., Lane, J. and De Haas, D. (2011) Long-term trends and opportunities for managing regional water supply and wastewater greenhouse gas emissions, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(12): 5434 - 5440

Ganigué Pagès, R., Gutierrez, O., Rootsey, R. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Chemical dosing for sulfide control in Australia: An industry survey, Water Research, 45(19): 6564 - 6574

Hao, X., Wang, Q., Cao, Y. and van Loosdrecht, M.C. (2011) Evaluating sludge minimization caused by predation and viral infection based on the extended activated sludge model No. 2d, Water Research, 45(16): 5130 - 5140

Ge, H., Jensen, P.D. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Increased temperature in the thermophilic stage in temperature phased anaerobic digestion (TPAD) improves degradability of waste activated sludge, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 187(1-3): 355 - 361 Ge, H., Jensen, P.D. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Relative kinetics of anaerobic digestion under thermophilic and mesophilic conditions, Water Science and Technology, 64(4): 848 - 853 Ge, H., Jensen, P.D. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Temperature phased anaerobic digestion increases apparent hydrolysis rate for waste activated sludge, Water Research, 45(4): 1597 - 1606 Gottschalk, F., Ort, C., Scholz, R.W. and Nowack, B. (2011) Engineered nanomaterials in rivers - Exposure scenarios for Switzerland at high spatial and temporal resolution, Environmental Pollution, 159(12): 3439 - 3445 Guillén-Burrieza, E., Blanco, J., Zaragoza, G., Alarcón, D.-C., Palenzuela, P., Ibarra, M. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Experimental analysis of an air gap membrane distillation solar desalination pilot system, Journal of Membrane Science, 379(1-2): 386 - 396

Hu, S., Zeng, R., Keller, J., Lant, P. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Effect of nitrate and nitrite on the selection of microorganisms in the denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation process, Environmental Microbiology Reports, 3(3): 315 - 319 Jensen, P.D, Ge, H. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Assessing the role of biochemical methane potential tests in determining anaerobic degradability rate and extent, Water Science and Technology, 64(4): 880 - 886 Jiang, G., Gutierrez, O., Sharma, K., Keller, J. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Optimization of intermittent, simultaneous dosage of nitrite and hydrochloric acid to control sulfide and methane productions in sewers, Water Research, 45(18): 6163 - 6172 Jiang, G., Gutierrez, O. and Yuan, Z. (2011) The strong biocidal effect of free nitrous acid on anaerobic sewer biofilms, Water Research, 45(12): 3735 - 3743 Kenway, S., Gregory, A., and McMahon, J. (2011) Urban water mass balance analysis, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 15(5): 693 - 706 Kenway, S.J., Lant, P.A., Priestley, A. and Daniels, P. (2011) The connection between water and energy in cities: a review, Water Science and Technology, 63(9): 1983 - 1990

Kenway, S., Lant, P. A. and Priestley, T. (2011) Quantifying water-energy links and related carbon emissions in cities, Journal of Water and Climate Change, 2(4): 247 - 259 Lai, F.Y., Ort, C., Gartner, C., Carter, S., Prichard, J., Kirkbride, P., Bruno, R., Hall, W., Eaglesham, G. and Mueller, J.F. (2011) Refining the estimation of illicit drug consumptions from wastewater analysis: Co-analysis of prescription pharmaceuticals and uncertainty assessment, Water Research, 45(15): 4437 - 4448 Law, Y., Lant, P. and Yuan, Z. (2011) The effect of pH on N2O production under aerobic conditions in a partial nitritation system, Water Research, 45(18): 5934 - 5944 Lu, Y., Slater, F.R., Mohd-Zaki, Z., Pratt, S. and Batstone, D.J. (2011) Impact of operating history on mixed culture fermentation microbial ecology and product mixture, Water Science and Technology, 64(3) 760 - 765 Martin, I., Pidou, M., Soares, A., Judd, S. and Jefferson, B. (2011) Modelling the energy demands of aerobic and anaerobic membrane bioreactors for wastewater treatment, Environmental Technology, 32(9): 921 - 932 Martin-Garcia, I., Monsalvo, V., Pidou, M., Le-Clech, P., Judd, S.J., McAdam, E.J. and Jefferson, B. (2011) Impact of membrane configuration on fouling in anaerobic membrane bioreactors, Journal of Membrane Science, 382(1-2): 41 - 49 Mohanakrishnan, J., Kofoed, M.V., Barr, J., Yuan, Z., Schramm, A. and Meyer, R.L. (2011) Dynamic microbial response of sulfidogenic wastewater biofilm to nitrate, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 91(6): 1647 - 1657 Morgan-Sagastume, F., Pratt, S., Karlsson, A., Cirne, D., Lant, P. and Werker, A. (2011) Production of volatile fatty acids by fermentation of waste activated sludge pre-treated in full-scale thermal hydrolysis plants, Bioresource Technology, 102(3): 3089 - 3097

Mu, Y., Radjenovic, J., Shen, J., Rozendal, R.A., Rabaey, K. and Keller, J. (2011) Dehalogenation of iodinated x-ray contrast media in a bioelectrochemical system, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(2): 782 - 788 Neale, P.A., Antony, A., Gernjak, W., Leslie, G. and Escher, B.I. (2011) Natural versus wastewater derived dissolved organic carbon: Implications for the environmental fate of organic micropollutants, Water Research, 45(14): 4227 - 4237 Pijuan, M., Werner, U. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Reducing the startup time of aerobic granular sludge reactors through seeding floccular sludge with crushed aerobic granules, Water Research, 45(16): 5075 - 5083 Pijuan, M., Ye, L. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Could nitrite/free nitrous acid favour GAOs over PAOs in enhanced biological phosphorus removal systems?, Water Science and Technology, 63(2): 345 - 351 Pikaar, I., Rozendal, R., Yuan, Z. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical caustic generation from sewage, Electrochemistry Communications, 13(11): 1202 - 1204 Pikaar, I., Rozendal, R.A., Yuan, Z., Keller, J. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical sulfide oxidation from domestic wastewater using mixed metal-coated titanium electrodes, Water Research, 45(17): 5381 - 5388 Pikaar, I., Rozendal, R., Yuan, Z., Keller, J. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical sulfide removal from synthetic and real domestic wastewater at high current densities, Water Research, 45(6): 2281 - 2289 Powell, N., Shilton, A., Pratt, S. and Chisti, Y. (2011) Luxury uptake of phosphorus by microalgae in full-scale waste stabilisation ponds, Water Science and Technology, 63(4): 704 - 709 Powell, N., Shilton, A., Pratt, S. and Chisti, Y. (2011) Phosphate release from waste stabilisation pond sludge: significance and fate of polyphosphate, Water Science and Technology, 63(8): 1689 - 1694 AWMC Annual Report 2011

Pratt, C., Shilton, A., Haverkamp, R.G. and Pratt, S. (2011) Chemical techniques for pretreating and regenerating active slag filters for improved phosphorus removal, Environmental Technology, 32(10): 1053 - 1062 Radjenovic, J., Bagastyo, A., Rozendal, R.A., Mu, Y., Keller, J. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical oxidation of trace organic contaminants in reverse osmosis concentrate using RuO2/IrO2coated titanium anodes, Water Research, 45(4): 1579 - 1586 Radjenovic, J., Escher, B.I. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical degradation of the β-blocker metoprolol by Ti/Ru0.7 Ir0.3 O2 and Ti/SnO2-Sb electrodes, Water Research, 45(10): 3205 - 3214 Reungoat, J., Escher, B.I., Macova, M. and Keller, J. (2011) Biofiltration of wastewater treatment plant effluent: Effective removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products and reduction of toxicity, Water Research, 45(9): 2751 - 2762 Reungoat, J., Escher, B.I., Macova, M., Argaud, F.X., Gernjak, W. and Keller, J. (2011) Ozonation and biological activated carbon filtration of wastewater treatment plant effluents, Water Research, 46(3): 863 - 872 Rieckermann, J., Anta, J., Scheidegger, A. and Ort, C. (2011) Assessing wastewater micropollutant loads with approximate bayesian computations, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(10): 4399 - 4406 Rossi, L., Rumley, L., Ort, C., Minkkinen, P., Barry, D.A. and Chevre, N. (2011) Sampling helper a web-based tool to assess the reliability of sampling strategies in sewers and receiving waters, Water Science and Technology, 63(12): 2975 - 2982 Seviour, T.W., Lambert, L.K., Pijuan, M. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Selectively inducing the synthesis of a key structural exopolysaccharide in aerobic granules by enriching for Candidatus “Competibacter phosphatis”, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 92(6): 1297 - 1305 Shi, Y., Tyson, G.W., Eppley, J.M. and De Long, E.F. (2011) Integrated metatranscriptomic and metagenomic analyses of stratified microbial assemblages in the open ocean, The ISME Journal, 5(6): 999 - 1013 Sirtori, C., Zapata, A., Gernjak, W., Malato, S., Lopez, A. and Aqüera, A. (2011) Solar photo-Fenton degradation of nalidixic acid in waters and wastewaters of different composition. Analytical assessment by LC-TOF-MS, Water Research, 45(4): 1736 - 1744

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Skennerton, C.T., Angly, F.E., Breitbart, M., Bragg, L., He, S., McMahon, K.D., Hugenholtz, P. and Tyson, G.W. (2011) Phage encoded H-NS: A potential Achilles heel in the bacterial defence system, PloS One, 6(5): e20095-1 - e20095-7 Slater, F.R., Singer, A.C., Turner, S., Barr, J.J. and Bond, P.L. (2011) Pandemic pharmaceutical dosing effects on wastewater treatment: No adaptation of activated sludge bacteria to degrade the antiviral drug Oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) and loss of nutrient removal performance, FEMS Microbiology Letters, 315(1): 17 - 22 Sudarjanto, G., Sharma, K., Gutierrez, O. and Yuan, Z. (2011) A laboratory assessment of the impact of brewery wastewater discharge on sulfide and methane production in a sewer, Water Science and Technology, 64(8): 1614 - 1619 Thompson, J., Eaglesham, G., Reungoat, J., Poussade, Y., Bartkow, M., Lawrence, M. and Mueller, J.F. (2011) Removal of PFOS, PFOA and other perfluoroalkyl acids at water reclamation plants in South East Queensland Australia, Chemosphere, 82(1): 9 - 17 Verawaty, M., Pijuan, M., Yuan. Z. and Bond, P.L. (2011) Determining the mechanisms for aerobic granulation from mixed seed of floccular and crushed granules in activated sludge wastewater treatment, Water Research, 46(3): 761 - 771 Virdis, B., Read, S.T., Rabaey, K., Rozendal, R.A., Yuan, Z. and Keller, J. (2011) Biofilm stratification during simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) at a biocathode, Bioresource Technology, 102(1): 334 - 341 Wang, A.J., Cheng, H.Y., Liang, B., Ren, N.Q., Cui, D., Lin, N., Kim, B.H. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Efficient reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline with a biocatalyzed cathode, Environmental Science & Technology, 45(23): 10186 - 10193 Zimmermann, S.G., Wittenwiler, M., Hollender, J., Krauss, M., Ort, C., Siegrist, H. and von Gunten, U. (2011) Kinetic assessment and modeling of an ozonation step for full-scale municipal wastewater treatment: Micropollutant oxidation, byproduct formation and disinfection, Water Research, 45(2): 605 - 617

Conference papers Ayache, C., Croue, J.P., Gernjak, W., Pidou, M., Poussade, Y. and Tazi-Pain, A. (2011) Impact of biological treatment on membrane performance in tertiary treatment for water recycling, International Desalination Association World Congress 2011 on Desalination and Water Reuse, September 4-9, Perth, Australia

Ayache, C., Pidou, M., Gernjak, W., Poussade, Y., Croue, J.P., Tazi-Pain, A. and Keller, J. (2011) Characterization of secondary treated effluents for tertiary membrane filtration and water recycling, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 26-29, Barcelona, Spain

Donose, B.C., Sukumar, S., Pidou, M., Poussade, Y., Keller, J. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Impact of pH on RO membrane performance in accelerated ageing, IWAMTC 2011: 6th IWA Specialist Conference on Membrane Technology for Water & Wastewater Treatment, October 4-7, Aachen, Germany

Aryal, R., Chong M. N. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Influence of pH on organic and inorganic colloids in stormwater, 4th IWA ASPIRE Conference & Exhibition, Toward Sustainable Water Supply and Recycling Systems, October 2-6, Tokyo, Japan

Farré, M. J., Doederer, K., Gernjak, W., Poussade, Y. and Weinberg, Y. (2011) Disinfection by-product management in high quality recycled water, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 26-29, Barcelona, Spain

Bagastyo, A. Y., Radjenovic, J., Mu, Y., Rozendal, R. A., Batstone, D. J. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical treatment of reverse osmosis membrane concentrates, 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, September 11-16, Niigata, Japan

Freguia, S. and Virdis, B. (2011) Light-driven extracellular electron transfer in microalgae, 3rd International Microbial Fuel Cell Conference, June 6-8, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

Bagastyo, A.Y., Radjenovic, J., Kristiana, I., Mu, Y., Batstone, D.J., Joll, C. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical treatment of problematic reverse osmosis membrane concentrates, The 3rd Urban Water Security Research Alliance Science Forum and Stakeholder Engagement: Building Linkages Collaboration and Science Quality, September 14-15, Brisbane, Australia Cayford, B., Tyson, G., Keller, J. and Bond, P. (2011) Microbial community composition associated with sewer corrosion, Engineers Australia Queensland Water Panel’s PostGraduate Presentation Evening, May 18, Brisbane, Australia Crichton, M.L., Raphael, A.P., Chen, X., Donose, B.C., Huang, H. and Kendall, M.A.F. (2011) The mechanical properties of freshly excised skin layers and their relevance to micro-medical device design, Skin Vaccination Summit 2011, October 12-14, Washington DC, USA Doederer, K., Keller, J., Gernjak, W., Weinberg, H., Poussade, Y. and Farre. M. (2011) How to minimize disinfection byproducts during the production of high quality recycled water, 2011 Water Quality Technology Conference and Exposition (WQTC), November 13-17, Phoenix, AZ, USA Donose, B., Gernjak, W., Keller, J., Pidou, M., Poussade, Y. and Sukumar, S. (2011) Static hypochlorite induced accelerated ageing of RO membranes: The effect of pH on performance, MDSC 2011: AWA Membranes and Desalination Speciality Conference IV, February 9-11, Surfers Paradise, Australia

Harrison, M. L., Johns, M. R., White, E. T. and Mehta, C. M. (2011) Growth rate kinetics for struvite crystallization, 14th Conference on Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction (PRES’11), May 8-11, Florence, Italy Jiang, G., Gutierrez, O. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Control of anaerobic sewer biofilms using the biocidal effect of free nitrous acid, IWA Biofilm Conference 2011: Processes in Biofilm, October 27-30, Shanghai, China Jiang, G., Gutierrez, O. and Yuan, Z. (2011) The biocidal effect of free nitrous acid on microorganisms in anaerobic wastewater biofilms, 8th IWA Leading-Edge Conference on Water and Wastewater Technologies, June 6 - 10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Keller, J. (2011) Bio-electrochemical processes – A new platform technology with broad applications, KAUST Winter Enrichment Program 2011, January 15-31, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia Keller, J. (2011) From wastewater treatment to resource recovery: Current developments and future trends, KAUST Winter Enrichment Program 2011, January 15-31, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia Le Corre, K., Kateley, D., Allen, B., Ort, C. and Keller, J. (2011) Determining key pharmaceuticals in wastewater primarily originating from hospital effluents: A consumption-based approach, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 24-29, Barcelona, Spain Le Corre, K.S, Kateley, D., Allen, B., Ort, C. and Keller, J. (2011) Assessing the input of hospitals to the amount of pharmaceutical residues in municipal wastewater: A consumption-based approach, The 3rd Urban Water Security Research Alliance Science Forum and Stakeholder Engagement: Building Linkages Collaboration and Science Quality, September 14-15, Brisbane, Australia

Mehta, C. M. and Batstone, D. J. (2011) Pre-treatment of digestate to improve nutrient recovery via crystallisation, International IWA - Symposium on Anaerobic Digestion of Solid Waste and Energy Crops, August 28 - September 1, Vienna, Austria Mu, Y., Rozendal, R. A., Rabaey, K. and Keller, J. (2011) Mineralization of recalcitrant organic pollutants in bioelectrochemical systems with an aerated cathode, 3rd International Microbial Fuel Cell Conference, June 6-8, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands Neale, P., Antony, A., Gernjak, W., Leslie, G., Escher, B. (2011) Are organic micropollutants more bioavailable in wastewater than common models predict?, SETAC Europe 21st Annual Meeting, May 15-19, Milan, Italy Pikaar, I., Rozendal, R., Yuan, Z., Keller, J. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical sulfide abatement in sewer systems, 8th IWA Leading-Edge Conference on Water and Wastewater Technologies, June 6-10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Porro, J., Guo, L., Sharma K., Benedetti, L., Vanrolleghem, P. A., Amerlinck, Y., Yuan, Z., Shaw, A. and Nopens, I. (2011) Developing a benchmarking tool for minimizing wastewater utility greenhouse gas footprints, Watermatex 2011: 8th IWA Symposium on Systems Analysis and Integrated Assessment, June 20-22, San Sebastian, Spain Pype, M.L., Poussade, Y., Patureau, D., Wery, N. and Gernjak, W. (2011) Fluorescence excitation-emission: A new tool for monitoring the integrity of reverse osmosis membranes?, IWA-MTC 2011: 6th IWA Specialist Conference on Membrane Technology for Water & Wastewater Treatment, October 4-7, Aachen, Germany Rabaey, K., Wise, A., Johnstone, A.J., Virdis, B., Freguia, S. and Rozendal, R.A. (2011) Bioelectrochemical conversion of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol, 241st National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society, March 27-31, Anaheim, CA, USA Radjenovic, J., Bagastyo, A., Macova, M., Escher, B. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical oxidation for the removal of organic micropollutants, Micropol and Ecohazard 2011: 7th International Water Association (IWA) Specialist Conference Assessment and control of micropollutants/ hazardous substances in water, July 11-13, Sydney, Australia Radjenovic, J., Bagastyo, A. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Electrochemical treatment of reverse osmosis concentrates, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 26-29, Barcelona, Spain Rattier, M., Reungoat, J., Gernjak, W., Joss, A. and Keller, J. (2011) Investigating

the role of adsorption and biodegradation in the removal of organic micropollutants during biological activated carbon filtration of treated wastewater, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 26-29, Barcelona, Spain Reungoat J., Escher B.I., Argaud F.X., Macova M., Farre M.J., Rattier M., Gernjak W. and Keller J. (2011) Biofiltration for wastewater reclamation and reuse, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 26-29, Barcelona, Spain Reungoat, J., Escher, B., Argaud, F. X., Macova, M., Farre, M., Rattier, M., Gernjak, W. and Keller, J.(2011) Biological activated carbon for the advanced treatment of wastewater treatment plant effluents, 8th IWA LeadingEdge Conference on Water and Wastewater Technologies, June 6-10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Reungoat, J., Escher, B., Macova, M., Gernjak, W. and Keller, J. (2011) Removal of organic micropollutants from WWTP effluents by ozone/ BAC reclamation plants in Australia, Endocrine Disruptors, Pharmaceutical Compounds and Disinfection By-products, May 26-27, Beijing, China Reungoat, J., Escher, B., Macova, M., Gernjak, W. and Keller, J. (2011) Removal of organic micropollutants from WWTP effluents by ozone/BAC reclamation plants in Australia, Micropol and Ecohazard 2011: 7th International Water Association (IWA) Specialist Conference - Assessment and control of micropollutants/ hazardous substances in water, July 11-13, Sydney, Australia Reungoat, J., Escher, B., Macova, M., Rattier, M., Gernjak, W.and Keller, J. (2011) Enhanced treatment project, The 3rd Urban Water Security Research Alliance Science Forum and Stakeholder Engagement: Building Linkages Collaboration and Science Quality, September 14-15, Brisbane, Australia Sharma K. R., Corrie, S. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Integrated modelling of sewer system and wastewater treatment plant for investigating the impacts of chemical dosing in sewer, Watermatex 2011: 8th IWA Symposium on Systems Analysis and Integrated Assessment, June 20-22, San Sebastian, Spain Willis, J., Fillmore, L., Shah, A., Yuan, Z. and Sharma, K. (2011) Quantifying methane evolution from sewers: Results from WERF/ DeKalb Phase 2- Continuous monitoring, 84th Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC 2011), October 15-19, Los Angeles, California, USA Ye, L., Hu, S., Poussade, Y., Keller, J. and Yuan, Z. (2011) Nitrifier decay and recovery in a moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) teating reverse osmosis concentrate, IWA Biofilm Conference 2011: Processes in Biofilm, October 27-30, Shanghai, China

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Book and book chapters

Conference participation

Angelidaki, I. and Batstone, D.J. (2011)

KAUST Winter Enrichment Program 2011, January 15-31, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

Anaerobic digestion: Process. In: Solid Waste Technology and Management. Thomas H. Christensen (Ed.), Wiley, 583 - 600 ISBN 978-1-4051-7517-3

Batstone, D.J and Jensen, P.D (2011) Anaerobic processes. In: Treatise on Water Science, Peter Wilderer (Ed.), IWA Publishing, 615 - 640 ISBN 978-0-4445-3193-3 Wong T.H.F., Allen R., Beringer J., Brown R.R., Chaudhri V., Deletic A., Fletcher T.D., Gernjak W., Hodyl L., Jakob C., Reeder M., Tapper N. and Walsh C. (2011) Stormwater Management in a Water Sensitive City: Blueprint 2011. Tony Wong (Ed.), The Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, 52 pp., ISBN 978-1-921912-00-9 Foley, J., Yuan, Z., Keller, J., Senante, E., Chandran, K., Willis, J., Shah, A., van Loosdrecht, M. and van Voorthuizen, E. (2011) N2O and CH4 emission from wastewater collection and treatment systems: technical report. Global Water Research Coalition, 146 pp., ISBN 978-90-77622-24-7 Foley, J., Yuan, Z., Keller, J., Senante, E., Chandran, K., Willis, J., Shah, A., van Loosdrecht, M. and van Voorthuizen, E. (2011) N2O and CH4 emission from wastewater collection and treatment systems: state of the science report. Global Water Research Coalition, 58 pp., ISBN 987-90-77622-23-0

Patents Brown, S., Rozendal, R. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Bioelectrochemical system, WO2011/038453 Dutta, P., Keller, J., Rabaey, K. and Rozendal, R. (2011) Treatment of sulfide containing material, WO2011/069192 Pikaar, I., Rozendal, R. and Rabaey, K. (2011) Controlling activity of microorganisms in wastewater systems, WO2011/150473 Yuan, Z., Jiang, G. and Gutierrez, O. (2011) Control of bacteria activity, such as in sewers and wastewater treatment systems, WO2011/134010 Yuan, Z. (2011) Treatment of membranes used in water treatment, AU2011/902781, refiled Yuan, Z. (2011) Pre-treatment of sludge, AU2011/902595, refiled

MDSC 2011: AWA Membranes and Desalination Speciality Conference IV, February 9-11, Surfers Paradise, Australia 4th AWA National Water Education, Efficiency and Water Industry Capacity Development Conferences, March 1-3, Melbourne, Australia 241st National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society, March 27-31, Anaheim, CA, USA Australian Water Association Workshop: Anaerobic Digestions, A Sustainable Solution, April 12, Sydney, Australia

AWMC Annual Report 2011

8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, September 26-29, Barcelona, Spain 4th IWA - ASPIRE Conference & Exhibition, Toward Sustainable Water Supply and Recycling Systems, October 2-6, Tokyo, Japan

Skin Vaccination Summit 2011, October 12-14, Washington DC, USA 84th Annual Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC 2011), October 15-19, Los Angeles, CA, USA

SETAC Europe 21st Annual Meeting, May 15-19, Milan, Italy

Water Services Association Australia Technology Transfer Conference, October 24-26, Sydney, Australia

Engineers Australia Queensland Water Panel’s Post-Graduate Presentation Evening, May 18, Brisbane, Australia Queensland Government Waste Forum, May 18, Narangba, Australia Endocrine Disruptors, Pharmaceutical Compounds and Disinfection By-products, May 26-27, Beijing, China 3rd Microbial Fuel Cell Conference, June 6-8, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands 8th IWA Leading-Edge Conference on Water and Wastewater Technologies, June 6-10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Watermatex 2011: 8 IWA Symposium on Systems Analysis and Integrated Assessment, June 20-22, San Sebastian, Spain th

Micropol and Ecohazard 2011: 7th International Water Association (IWA) Specialist Conference - Assessment and control of micropollutants/hazardous substances in water, July 11-13, Sydney, Australia Internation IWA - Symposium on Anaerobic Digestion of Solid Waste and Energy Crops, August 28 - September 1, Vienna, Austria International Desalination Association World Congress 2011 on Desalination and Water Reuse, September 4-9, Perth, Australia

2011

Seminars

6th IWA Specialist Conference on Membrane Technology for Water & Wastewater Treatment, October 4-7, Aachen, Germany

14th Conference on Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction (PRES’11), May 8-11, Florence, Italy

62nd Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, September 11-15, Niigata, Japan

The 3rd Urban Water Security Research Alliance Science Forum and Stakeholder Engagement: Building Linkages Collaboration and Science Quality, September 14-15, Brisbane, Australia

IWA Biofilm Conference 2011: Processes in Biofilms, October 27-30, Shanghai, China 2011 Water Quality Technology Conference and Exposition (WQTC), November 13-17, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Dr Stefano Freguia, AWMC, Microbial solar cells: bioelectrochemical systems powered by the sun, 28 January Mr Pengzhe Sui, Kyoto University, Japan: Behaviour of metals in the advanced sewage treatment process with excess sludge reduction and phosphorus recovery, 4 February Ms Eva Kammer Andresen, Aalborg University, Denmark: Monitoring environmental selection of Candidatus “Accumulibactor phosphatis” clades in 3 replicate mini sequencing batch reactors seeded with IIC-enriched sludge, 11 February Dr Bing-Jie Ni, AWMC: Formation process, function mechanism and modelling of the aerobic granular sludge, 4 March Ms Huoqing Ge, AWMC: Relative kinetics of anaerobic digestion under thermophilic and mesophilic conditions, 11 March A/Prof Damien Batstone, AWMC: Identification and evaluation of ratelimiting steps in anaerobic digestion, 11 March Ms Yingyu Law, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Understanding fugitive greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment systems, 18 March Mr Joe Lane, AWMC: Life cycle assessment of the Gold Coast urban water system, 18 March Mr Thomas Seviour, AWMC, Oral examination seminar: Aerobic sludge granules: macromolecular associations in extracellular polymeric substances, 22 March Mr Connor Skennerton, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Phage-host evolution in a model ecosystem, 25 March

Mr Jeremy Barr, AWMC, Oral examination seminar: The microbial ecology of granular sludge in enhanced biological phosphorus removal, 30 March Prof Per Halkjaer Nielsen, Aalborg University, Denmark: A novel conceptual ecosystem model: A community for enhanced biological phosphorus removal, 31 March Mr Maxime Rattier, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Understanding micropollutant removal in biological activated carbon filters, 1 April Dr. Cullen R. Buie, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA: Linear and non-linear electrokinetics for applications in materials science and microbiology, 8 April Ms Ying Shi, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Characterisation and application of anaerobic methane and ammonia oxidation, 13 April Dr Falk Harnish, TU Braunschweig, Institute of Environmental and Sustainable Chemistry, Germany: On the study and engineering of bioelectrocatalysis: A call for multidisciplinarity, 15 April Mr Joe Lane, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Life cycle assessment and total water cycle planning, 29 April Mr Ronald Musenze, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Fugitive greenhouse gases CH4 & N2O from Southeast Queensland waterways, 6 May Dr Cristian Picioreanu, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands: Numerical biofilm models, 13 May Mr Haoyi Chen, visiting student AWMC: Efficient reduction of nitrobenzene aniline with a biocatalyzed cathode, 27 May Dr Shihu Hu, AWMC: The kinetics of nitrate reduction and methane oxidation in an archaea-dominated denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation (DAMO) culture, 27 May Dr Marc Pidou, AWMC: Reverse osmosis membranes, 3 June Mr Subash Sukumar, Master Student, AWMC: Reverse osmosis membranes performance in accelerated ageing, 3 June Ms Huoqing Ge, PhD Student, Oral examination seminar: Characterization of temperature phased anaerobic digestion for organic solids stabilization, 17 June Dr Chirag Mehta, AWMC: Recovery of fertilizer from waste, 24 June

Dr Bogdan Donose, AWMC: The micro-cantilever resonator: a weighing scale for nanoworld, 24 June Dr Howard Leemon, Manager of Innovation and Commercial Development, EAIT Faculty, UQ: Intellectual property rights for staff and students, 1 July Ms Katrin Doederer, PhD Student, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Assessment of emerging disinfection by-products during the production of high quality recycled water, 15 July Ms Lauren Bragg, AWMC: Can you keep the noise down? Correcting pyrosequencing error in amplicon sequences, 22 July Dr Bernardino Virdis, AWMC: Use of Confocal Raman Microscopy for the Topological Characterization of Electroactive Biofilms, 22 July Prof Zhiguo Yuan, AWMC: Scientific writing – my personal experience, 29 July Dr Wolfgang Gernjak, AWMC: Need to solve a water supply crisis? So turn on the recycled water treatment plant! Ready, steady, go!, 5 August Dr Phil Bond, AWMC: What’s that extracellular DNA doing in my biofilm?, 12 August Dr Liu Ye, AWMC: Free nitrous acid inhibition on bacterial metabolism involved in enhanced biological phosphorous removal, 12 August Ms Elena Meija Likosova, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Iron and phosphorus recovery from precipitation sludge, 19 August Ms Marie-Laure Pype, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Development of surrogates to monitor reverse osmosis membrane integrity and performance during filtration of pre-treated secondary effluent, 23 August Dr Sandra Hall, AWMC: AWMC Communications - we don’t just talk about it, 26 August Dr Oriol Gutierrez, ICRA - Catalan Institute for Water Research, Spain: Steps and tools towards the integral management of Urban Water System, 26 August Mr Arseto Bagastyo, AWMC: Electrochemical treatment of reverse osmosis membrane concentrates, 2 September Mr Andre Horn, Occupational trainee Technische University, Germany: Phosphorus recovery from secondary effluents - Evaluation of the potential of a fixed bed column with recycled concrete aggregates, 2 September AWMC Annual Report 2011

Dr Guangming Jiang, AWMC: The novel findings - Synergism between FNA and hydrogen peroxide in biofilm control, 9 September Mr Yang (Kenn) Lu, AWMC: Acidogenic microbes in anaerobic granules, 16 September Dr Kristell Le Corre, AWMC: Determining key pharmaceuticals in wastewater primarily originating from hospital effluents: A consumption-based approach, 23 September Dr Gene Tyson, AWMC & ACE: Applying ecogenomics to engineered and environmental systems, 23 September Mr Steven Kenway, AWMC: Urban metabolism and the water energy nexus – reflections on two international institutes, 30 September Ms Yuting Pan, AWMC: Understanding nitrous oxide accumulation during denitrification in wastewater treatment, 7 October Dr Steven Pratt, AWMC and School of Chemical Engineering: Science and engineering in integrated water management: The coal seam gas story, 7 October Prof Zhiguo Yuan, AWMC: Technical presentation on how to apply for grants, 14 October A/Prof Damien Batstone, AWMC: Modelling presentation, 14 October

Dr Jens Kroemer, AIBN: Presentation on metabolic engineering of industrial microbes, 17 October Ms Dang Ho, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: High-rate methanogenesis, 21 October Prof Diana S. Aga, University of Buffalo, USA: Fate and treatment of emerging contaminants and endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment, 28 October Dr Maria José Farré, AWMC: Managing disinfection by-products in complex water networks, 4 November

Prof Piet Lens, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands: A general overview of the research activities of the Department of Environmental Resources of UNESCO-IHE, 24 November Mr Ilje Pikaar, AWMC: Electrochemical sulfide abatement in sewer systems, 25 November Mr Qilin Wang, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: An innovative free nitrous acid (FNA)–based technology for sludge minimization in wastewater systems, 30 November

Dr Jelena Radjenovic, AWMC: Electrochemistry – a tool to remove the organic pollutants from the water cycle?, 4 November

Ms Jing Sun, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Understanding and modeling the impact of different flow conditions and wastewater compositions on in-sewer processes, 1 December

Mr Fangzhou (Ark) Du, AWMC: MFC application on human feces dispose and continuous flowing membraneless MFC, 11 November

Ms Xue (Lisa) Bai, AWMC, Confirmation seminar: Understanding the role of bacteria on algal mass culture system, 2 December

Ms Natacha Juste-Poinapen, AWMC: Influence of buffer capacity and ionic strength on modes of interspecies electron transfer, 11 November

Ms Zuhaida Mohd Zaki, AWMC: The impact of acclimatised culture on glucose fermentation product, 9 December

Dr Anthony Joseph, AWMC: Corrosion of concrete in sewerage systems: some insights into the initiation of corrosion processes, 18 November Mr Kun Guo, AWMC: The effects of electrode surface modifications on biofilm formation and electron transfer in bioelectrochemical systems, 23 November

Ms Chrystelle Ayache, AWMC: Fouling in low pressure membranes… let’s try to anticipate it!, 16 December A/Prof Damien Batstone, AWMC: Thermodynamic and regulatory impact of hydrogen on anaerobic processes, 16 December

This report is printed on Mega Recycled Silk with soy inks.

AWMC Annual Report 2011

Level 4 Gehrmann Building (60) Research Road, St. Lucia Campus The University of Queensland Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia Telephone: +61 7 3365 4730 Facsimile: +61 7 3365 4726 Website: www.awmc.uq.edu.au Email: awmc@awmc.uq.edu.au