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战略上和至关重要的研究基础设施缺口，这一缺口阻碍了为所有人提供可持续的清洁水。我们目前的分散式废水处理模式需要被那些从废物中产生能量并回收营养物质等资源的模式所取代。仅废水处理就占英国总电力的1.0%和美国的1.3%。它在资金和运营上都很昂贵，最终由客户支付。在下个世纪，全球水务行业必须向新型低碳低能耗技术过渡，在将废水净化到高标准的同时，从废水中回收价值。对实现这一目标至关重要的、严格的、可重复的大规模实验是有风险的、昂贵的，也是创新的重大障碍。这一共享设施将允许多个国际和国内研究人员对科学严谨、工业可信的水工程创新进行大规模实验研究。它将为废水研究设定一个新的全球标准，并将英国置于废水处理创新的国际中心。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信任。大多数大规模的试点研究都是不可复制的，缺乏控制，因此缺乏实验室的严谨性和声望。从业人员的怀疑是有根据的。即使是相对简单的物理化学反应器和单物种反应器的放大也是复杂和具有挑战性的。在开放的生物废水处理系统中，实际规模更大的细菌的组成和动力学与我们在实验规模上看到的数万亿个细菌有很大的不同。这个国家设施将由可复制的可运输的定制模块化污水处理厂组成，规模为1-12立方米，包括传统的（活性污泥和滴流过滤器），新的能源产生技术（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地区污染径流的湿地/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的障碍，使水务行业和下一代水务工程师和管理人员能够加速将研究成果转化为现实世界，从而造福于经济、客户和我们所依赖的环境。

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.