Advanced and emerging issues in drinking water treatment

据估计，加拿大在市政供水基础设施方面存在800亿美元的赤字，这并不包括应对新出现的水质挑战、气候变化的影响和监管变化所需的新支出。该提案代表了饮用水行业9家主要公用事业公司和3家公司组成的财团，他们确定了一些研究和创新的优先需求，以应对这些挑战。这项为期五年、耗资700万美元的研究计划将专注于与蓝藻相关的健康和运营风险、自来水中微塑料的新威胁、解决饮用水源中入侵物种的方法、在水再利用中具有特殊应用的新型紫外线处理技术、改进活性炭的使用以控制异味和微污染物。降低超滤的成本和能源，并改善分配系统的消毒。多伦多大学土木与矿物工程系的鲍勃·安德鲁斯和罗恩·霍夫曼。它将导致20名本科生，22名应用科学硕士生，10名博士和13名博士后研究员的培训。 该研究计划的成果将显著提高加拿大和全球范围内饮用水源的质量和安全性。它将有助于向监管机构通报现行标准是否足够，或者是否需要进行修改以解决其中一些新出现的问题。这项工作将有助于公用事业公司有效和高效地提供安全用水，并将有助于培训下一代水处理专业人员。

There are estimates that Canada suffers from an $80B deficit in municipal water infrastructure, which does not address new spending that may be required to address emerging water quality challenges, repercussions of climate change, and regulatory change. This proposal represents a consortium of 9 major utilities and 3 companies in the drinking water sector, who have identified some of the top priority needs for research and innovation to address these challenges. The five year, $7M research program will focus on health and operational risks associated with cyanobacteria, the emerging threat of microplastics in our tap water, methods to address invasive species in our drinking water sources, novel ultraviolet treatment techniques that have particular applications in water reuse, improvements to the use of activated carbon to control off-flavours and micropollutants, reducing the cost and energy associated with ultrafiltration, and improving disinfection in distribution systems.The project will be led by Profs. Bob Andrews and Ron Hofmann of the University of Toronto, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering. It will lead to the training of 20 undergraduate students, 22 Master's of Applied Science students, 10 PhD's, and 13 Post-Doctoral Fellows. The outcomes of the research program will measurably improve the quality and security of our drinking water sources in Canada and on a global scale. It will help to inform regulators on whether current standards are sufficient, or whether changes are needed to address some of these emerging concerns. The work will help utilities to deliver safe water effectively and efficiently, and will help to train the next generation of water treatment professionals.