William Anderson

William A. Anderson is a Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department and the former Director of Admissions for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

With his expertise in photochemical (UV) and biological air and water pollution control and biochemical engineering of fermentation and pharmaceutical processes, Professor Anderson maintains industry research collaborations in the areas of hospital air emissions control, clinical water testing, residential air UV disinfection and agricultural resource recovery.

His recent projects include automated UV disinfection in hospitals, rapid detection of microbial contamination of water, removal of ammonia from water, and antimicrobial materials for use in engineered infection control.

A major emphasis of Professor Anderson’s work in pollution control technology for air treatment is reactor engineering for photocatalysis and photolysis, using an ultraviolet light irradiated catalyst to degrade organic contaminants at ambient temperatures. He is frequently consulted by industry and others on the use of UV germicidal devices for disinfection of air, surfaces, and water.

In addition to his research work, Professor Anderson has written over 105 journal articles, in addition to conference proceedings and technical reports. During his time as Director of Admissions, Professor Anderson started a blog about engineering undergraduate admissions which has been widely read by current and prospective Waterloo Engineering undergraduate students.

William Anderson is a member of the Waterloo Centre for Microbial Research, the Water Institute, the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, and the Tsinghua-Waterloo Joint Research Centre for Micro/Nano Energy and Environmental Technology

• Photocatalysis
• Photoreaction engineering
• Antimicrobial materials
• Disinfection
• Air pollution control
• Biochemical Engineering
• Biomedical Engineering
• Green Reaction Engineering
• Nanoparticle synthesis
• Advanced Oxidation Processes for Wastewater and Air Treatment
• Photochemical Reactor Engineering
• Biofiltration
• Water
• Environmental Engineering
• Infection and Pathogen Control
• Devices

• 1991, Doctorate, Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 1986, Master's, Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 1981, Bachelor's, Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo

• CHE 482 - Chemical Engineering Design
  • Taught in 2017
• CHE 480 - Process Analysis and Design
  • Taught in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
• CHE 672 - Air Pollution Control
  • Taught in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020
• CHE 572 - Air Pollution Control
  • Taught in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020

• Sanjay Krishna Muralidharan, Lukas Bauman, William A. Anderson, Boxin Zhao, Recyclable antimicrobial sulphonated poly(ether ether ketone) - copper films: Flat vs micro-pillared surfaces, Materials Today Communications, 24, 2020
• Chik AHS, Emelko MB, Anderson WB, O’Sullivan KE, Savio D, Farnleitner AH, Blaschke AP, Schijven JF, Evaluation of groundwater bacterial community composition to inform waterborne pathogen vulnerability assessments, Science of the Total Environment, 743(140472), 2020
  Link
• 1. J.G.B. Derraik, W.A. Anderson, L. Connelly, Y.C. Anderson, Rapid review of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 viability, susceptibility to treatment, and the disinfection and reuse of PPE, particularly filtering facepiece respirators, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• L. Zhang, C. Moralejo, W.A. Anderson, A review of the influence of humidity on photocatalytic decomposition of gaseous pollutants, Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2019
• Y. Bai, M. Moo-Young, W.A. Anderson, Characterization of power input and its impact on mass transfer in a rocking bioreactor, Chemical Engineering Science, 2019
• E. Choi, Z. Tan, W.A. Anderson, Formation of secondary organic aerosols by germicidal ultraviolet light, Environments, 6, 2019
• Y. Bai, M. Moo-Young, W.A. Anderson, A mechanistic model for gas-liquid mass transfer prediction in a rocking disposable bioreactor, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 116, 2019, 1986 - 1998
• Bustami, Y and Moo-Young, M and Anderson, WA, Analysis of the heterogeneous structure of iron oxide/gold nanoparticles and their application in a nanosensor, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 245, 2017, 753 - 764
• Schmidt, Thomas and Anderson, William A, Biotrickling Filtration of Air Contaminated with 1-Butanol, Environments, 4(3), 2017
• Ragothaman, A and Anderson, WA, Air Quality Impacts of Petroleum Refining and Petrochemical Industries, Environments, 4(3), 2017
• Zhou, Qiong and Wen, John Z and Zhao, Pei and Anderson, William A, Synthesis of Vertically-Aligned Zinc Oxide Nanowires and Their Application as a Photocatalyst, Nanomaterials, 7(1), 2017
• F Tanvir, A Yaqub, S Tanvir, WA Anderson, Poly-L-arginine coated silver nanoprisms and their anti-bacterial properties, Nanomaterials, 7(10), 2017
• Tanvir, Fouzia and Yaqub, Atif and Tanvir, Shazia and Anderson, William A, Colorimetric enumeration of bacterial contamination in water based on β-galactosidase gold nanoshell activity, Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 99, 2017, 49 - 56
• W.A. Anderson, M. Mehrata, C. Moralejo, Halogenated Gas Control, A&WMA Ontario Managing Emissions - Reduction Strategies and Control, 11 2018, Guelph. (Accepted in 2018)
  Link

• Prof to lead work on PPE machine donated by Toyota
• Protecting heathcare workers from COVID-19
• Disinfection can help in efforts to recycle personal protective equipment

• Not currently accepting applications for graduate students