As part of the Water Institute's WaterTalks lecture series, Dr. Belinda Sturm, Director Kansas NSF EPSCoR, Professor and Ross McKinney Faculty Fellow, University of Kansas, Kansas, US, will present: Wastewater process intensification: Using biological process design to increase the hydraulic and treatment capacity of a municipal wastewater treatment plant.
This event is in person in DC 1302 with a networking lunch reception to follow in DC 1301 (The Fishbowl).
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Municipal water and resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) serve as a catchment for urban water systems, with influent loads of carbon, nutrients, pathogens and emerging contaminants, such as microplastics. These facilities are under pressure to expand capacity due to urbanization, climate change, and increasingly stringent discharge requirements. The treatment capacity of wastewater treatment plants is often limited by the settling properties (clarifier operation) of the sludge rather than the conversion/removal capacity, especially during wet weather conditions. Sludge densification or the formation of granular sludge aims to provide a biological process in which slow-growing populations (nitrifiers, polyphosphate-accumulating organisms, and anaerobic ammonia oxidizers) can be maintained within a fast-settling particle. While the majority of AGS research has focused on factors that affect granule formation and efficient biological nutrient removal, the AGS matrix has significant advantages for removing pathogens and other contaminants, which make this technology even more impactful for WRRFs. This presentation will provide an overview of design approaches within continuous flow and sequencing batch reactor systems that have been shown to improve sludge settleability and form granules. The resulting solids flux curves have been measured to determine the implications for clarifier and overall plant capacity. The presentation will address how sludge densification or granular sludge can be used for process intensification and improved plant resiliency.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Belinda Sturm is a Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering at the University of Kansas and the statewide Director of the Kansas National Science Foundation EPSCoR program. Belinda joined KU in 2006 and served as the Associate Vice Chancellor of Research from 2018 to 2022. At the national and international level, Belinda serves as on the Board of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, Chair of the Water Environment Federation’s Municipal Design Symposium, and as Past-Chair of the International Water Association’s USA National Committee Executive Board.
Belinda earned her B.S. in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her PhD in Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Sturm’s primary research interest is the use of microbial communities in water reclamation and resource recovery from municipal wastewater. In 2012, the American Academy of Environmental Engineers awarded Belinda an Excellence in Environmental Engineering honor award for her research on coupling nutrient removal with algae-mediated energy recovery. In 2022, the Water Research Foundation awarded Belinda the Paul L. Busch Award to further research on aerobic granular sludge.