Grants and Contributions:
Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)
Global water resources are under tremendous strain due to population growth, rapid urbanization and industrialization, water-related disasters, climate change and lack of governance. Water conservation, source water protection, reclamation, recycling and reuse are identified as the most effective water management approaches to solve the global freshwater crisis.
Under these themes, and in accordance with the established and on-going research program of the applicant on sustainable water and wastewater technologies, the proposed research will deal with important water issues namely drinking water safety, industrial wastewater recycling, and resource recovery. The short-term objectives of proposed research for the next five years are aimed at developing and optimizing technologies for: (A) reduction of algal matter produced disinfection by-products (DBP) in drinking water; (B) treatment and recycling of oily wastewater with complex composition of oil, dissolved organics, and heavy metals; and (C) tertiary treatment for removal of trace contaminants from industrial effluents for recycling.
The technologies involved in the program are based on new developments of physico-chemical principles namely coagulation, adsorption, membrane separation and advanced oxidation processes with process intensification, development of process models and cost analysis. Specifically, o ver the next five years, the proposed research will address (i) difficult removal of hydrophilic intracellular algal matter determining optimum pretreatment and coagulation conditions, (ii) recovery of bio-flocculants formed by coagulant metal and algal matter, (iii) alleviation of membrane-fouling due to interactions of algal matter with natural organic matter, (iv) determine optimum treatment conditions for the reduction of algae related disinfection by-products, (v) characterization of novel combination of adsorbents for simultaneous removal of toxic metal and organics, and (vi) integrated novel oscillatory membrane separator and photocatalytic reactor for the treatment of trace concentration of organics.
The long-term research objectives of the DG proposal are to contribute to the knowledge on basic environmental sciences and develop innovative and cost-effective technologies for efficient water management and source water protection. Global water market will be potentially $1 trillion by 2020, and many of the world’s leading water companies are located in Canada. The HQPs trained in the program will contribute to the talent pool to maintain the leading role of Canada in this vital industrial sector.