Advanced technologies for waste treatment

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With the increasing world-wide demand on natural resources, existing technologies are not adequate to protect sustainable development; new technologies and more cost effective solutions are always needed. Municipal waste water effluents are the major source of pollutants in natural water due to their complex nature because of human waste and a variety of chemicals that come from both individual and industrial activities. Lately, they are also recognized to be a source of endocrine disrupting substances, which need to be removed for the reclamation and reuse of water. Similarly, the sludge generated from wastewater requires various treatment processes before it can be applied to agricultural lands as a final disposal method. The proposed research is directed toward developing novel and cost-effective advanced treatment technologies and design approach addressing some of the above issues with the following objectives: (i) degradation and removal of endocrine disruptor compounds present in water works and natural environments, (ii) novel application of advanced oxidation for the pretreatment of municipal sludge to improve solubulization of the sludge during anaerobic digestion and subsequent greater volume reduction and stabilization facilitating its disposal as agricultural soil, and (iii) application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for efficient design of sludge dryer. The major innovations involved with the proposed research include the development and optimization of the relevant treatment technologies, development of kinetic and mechanistic models of degradation of environmental chemicals, design of novel reactor systems with improved energy distribution and efficient hydrodynamics, and development of efficient CFD models for multiphase flow with heat and mass transfer. In addition, the proposed research will have the long term goals of contributing to the reaction kinetic data base of the environmental compounds for environmental modelers and engineers and develop an efficient integrated sludge management system.