| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/L55827/01 |
| Title: |
THE ANAEROBIC TREATMENT OF INDUSTRIAL WASTEWATERS CONTAINING TOXIC/REFRACTORY ORGANICS AND HEAVY METALS |
| Principal Investigator: |
Stuckey, Professor DC |
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| Department: |
Chemical Engineering |
| Organisation: |
Imperial College London |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
01 October 1997 |
Ends: |
30 September 2000 |
Value (£): |
259,038
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
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| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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Many industrial wastewaters contain both heavy metals (from low levels of 1-5 mg/1 up to 200 mg/1 in some cases), and a mixture of degradable and refractory organics, some of which may be inhibitory to biological treatment. This mixture makes many conventional treatment approaches difficult if not impossible. A recent anaerobic reactor design, the compartmentalised anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR), has shown promise in treating industrial wastes since it is extremely robust and can tolerate substantial hydraulic and organic shocks. In this work an ABR will be used to chemically precipitate heavy metals and recover them for recycling, and degrade toxic/refractory organics to methane with minimal sludge production. Ribosomal RNA probes will be developed to gain greater insights into the interactions of the complex microbial consortia in the reactor, including their spatial conformation. In addition, forced evolution will be employed to develop robust populations more resilient to heavy metals and toxic organics, and more capable of degrading refractory organics. The reactor will also be assessed to determine how robust it is to organic, hydraulic and metal shock loads. Finally, the speciation and fate of metals in an anaerobic environment will be evaluated with a special emphasis on complexation with organic ligands.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.imperial.ac.uk |