Experimental Biology and Engineering at the Pilot Scale - Strategic Equipment

这个试点规模的国家实验生物学和工程设施旨在填补一个具有战略意义和至关重要的研究基础设施缺口，该缺口阻碍了为所有人提供可持续的清洁水。我们目前分散的废水处理模式需要被那些从废物中产生能量并回收养分等资源的模式所取代。仅废水处理就占英国总发电量的1.0%，占美国发电量的1.3%。它的资本和运营成本都很高，最终由客户买单。在下个世纪，全球水务行业必须过渡到新的低碳、低能源技术，这种技术将从废水中回收价值，同时将其净化到高标准。严格的、可重复的大规模实验对实现这一目标至关重要，风险高、成本高，而且是创新的重大障碍。这一共享设施将允许多个国际和国内研究人员对科学上严谨、工业上可信的水工程创新进行大规模实验调查。它将为废水研究设定一个新的全球标准，并使英国成为废水处理领域的国际创新中心。大多数创新都死在学术实验室的长椅上，没有有效地转化为工程现实。这是因为实验室规模的创新缺乏行业从业者的可信度。大多数大规模的先导研究都是不可复制的，缺乏控制，因此没有实验室的严谨和威望。从业者的怀疑是有充分理由的。即使是相对简单的物理化学和单组分反应堆的放大也是复杂和具有挑战性的。在开放式生物废水处理系统中，真正更大规模的千万亿(万亿)细菌的组成和动力学与我们在试验台上看到的万亿细菌的组成和动态有很大的不同。这一国家设施将由可重复使用的可运输的定制模块化污水处理厂组成，规模为1-12m^3，其中包括常规污水处理厂(活性污泥和滴滤池)、新能源发电技术(微生物电化学燃料电池和厌氧反应器)以及可用于处理农村和城市受污染的径流水的湿地/泻湖(例如可持续城市排水系统)。这些资源将有助于减少创新障碍，使水务行业和下一代水务工程师和管理人员能够加快将创新从研究转化为现实世界，以造福于我们所依赖的经济、客户和环境。

This National Facility for Experimental Biology and Engineering at the Pilot Scale aims to fulfill a strategically and critically important research infrastructure gap that prevents the sustainable provision of clean water for all. Our current decentralized wastewater treatment model needs replacing with those that generate energy from waste and recover resources such as nutrients. Wastewater treatment alone accounts for up to 1.0% of total UK and 1.3% of US electricity. It is both capitally and operationally expensive, for which the customer ultimately pays. In the next century the global water industry must transition to novel low carbon low energy technologies that will recover value from wastewater while cleaning it to a high standard. The rigorous, replicated large-scale experimentation vital to meeting this goal is risky, costly and a significant barrier to innovation. This shared Facility will allow multiple international and national researchers to conduct large-scale experimental investigation of water engineering innovations that are scientifically rigorous and industrially credible. It will set a new global standard for wastewater research and place the UK as an international centre for innovation in wastewater treatment. Most innovations die on the academic lab benches and are not effectively translated into engineering reality. This is because lab-scale innovations lack credibility with Industry practitioners. Most large-scale pilot studies are un-replicated, lack control and thus the rigor and prestige of the lab. The skepticism of practitioners is well founded. The scale-up of even relatively simple physical-chemical and single species reactors is complex and challenging. In open biological wastewater treatment systems, the composition and dynamics of the quintillion (billion billion billion) bacteria at the real larger scale differ profoundly from the thousand billion bacteria we see at the bench scale. This National Facility will consist of replicated transportable custom-built modular wastewater treatment plants at 1-12 m^3 scale that includes conventional (activated sludge and trickling filters), new energy generating technologies (microbial electrochemical fuel cells and anaerobic reactors), and wetlands/lagoons that can be used to treat polluted run-off water in rural and city places (e.g. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems). These resources will help to reduce barriers to innovation by allowing the Water Industry and the next generation of water engineers and managers to accelerate the translation of innovations from research into the real world for the benefit of the economy, the customer and the environment we rely upon.