The NSERC Chair group attended the 2022 Ontario’s Water Conference & Trade Show, which was organized by OWWA and was held from May 2nd to May 4th in Niagara Falls. Chair members delivered five oral presentations and two poster presentations at this conference in different sessions, ranging from climate change, distribution, and treatment, to university research.
Climate Change Session
Kirti Nemani, PhD Candidate
Robustness in Drinking Water Treatment Systems to Manage Turbidity Related Water Quality Upsets During Extreme Weather
Kirti’s presentation focused on a robustness framework to guide water treatment utilities during short-term surface water quality upsets, and discussed different steps of the conceptual framework, as well as, its application to data from a full-scale drinking water treatment plant in Southern Ontario.
Distribution Session
Mahmoud Badawy, PhD Candidate & Mitchell Cooke, MASc. Candidate, Wilfrid Laurier University
The Impacts of Orthophosphate Addition on Monochloramine Decay and Biofilm Community Development in a Model Drinking Water Distribution System
Mahmoud’s and Mitch’s presentation discussed a 4 months experiment using four bench-scale systems, which were operated in parallel, each consisting of a feed tank, a residence tank, and an annular reactor. The experiment focused on the impact of different phosphate doses on chloramine residual loss. Results presented included chemical water quality parameters such as ammonia, nitrite and nitrite, chloramine residual values and the complementary microbiological analysis of the formed biofilms.
Treatment Session
Sina Golchi, MASc. Graduate & Research Associate
Super-fine Powdered Activated Carbon for Removal of Microcystin-LR: A Superior Alternative to Conventional Powdered Activated Carbon
Sina’s presentation focused on super-fine powdered activated carbon (SPAC), manufactured from three commercially available powdered activated carbons (PAC) (coal, coconut, and wood-based). The performance of these SPACs were evaluated with respect to the removal of microcystin-LR from ultra-pure and surface water. The presentation compared SPAC performances to the performances of the original PACs in terms of kinetics and capacities/isotherms for microcystin-LR in ultrapure and surface water.
Katarzyna Jaszczyszyn, Post-doc fellow
Adsorption of Microcystin-LR with Powdered Activated Carbon in NOM-Rich Surface Water
Kasia investigated the adsorption behavior (rate and capacity) of microcystin-LR using three commercially available PACs (coal, coconut and wood based) in natural surface water in the presence and absence of algal organic matter and she delivered a comprehensive overview of the results and main findings.
University Research Session
Noshin Nawar Reza, MASc. Candidate
Robustness of Drinking Water Treatment Plants during Normal Weather and Extreme Weather Events
Noshin’s presentation focused on robustness of the treatment steps that control turbidity, which were evaluated using the Turbidity Robustness Index (TRI) concept, developed by Huck and Coffey (2004) using on-line turbidity data. The presentation also explored bench-scale simulations and different operational strategies for treatment step(s) that are found to be less robust based on the TRI analysis.
Poster Gallery
Hemant Arora, PhD Candidate
How Effective is Biofiltration for Manganese Removal in Cold Water Conditions? A Pilot-Scale Investigation
Hemant’s presentation assessed the performance of concurrent biofiltration treatment of groundwater for iron and manganese removal in cold water conditions (<10°C) including a comparison of biofilter performance using different filter media namely sand, anthracite, and granular activated carbon. He provided details regarding pilot plant design and construction, in addition to an overview of the experimental approach and planned operations.
Jaita Saha, MASc. Candidate
Evaluation of Microplastics Removal Based on Published Full-Scale Drinking Water Treatment Plant Surveys
Based on information from published manuscript Jaita’s poster provided an analysis of the removal efficiencies of microplastics in different size ranges by full-scale drinking water treatment plants and also by individual treatment steps (i.e. coagulation-flocculation-sedimentation system, conventional filtration).
The OWWA conference was indeed a success. Thank you to everyone who was part of it. Also, we would like to thank our students for all their hard work, as well as, Dr. Sigrid Peldszus and Dr. Peter Huck for their supervision.
