Environmental Lab University of Southampton, Southampton (2026)

14/04/2022

295 Food Waste Warriors

Angie Bywater, our ever-active EBNet co-Manager, sent in this post about a recent event:

"EBNet's Anaerobic Digestion Working Group has interests in a range of related topics from food waste to composting and food production. When one of the group’s members was off sick, I was invited to take her place as a Technical Expert for a Food Waste Hackathon held by ReLondon and Food Wave. ReLondon (the operating name for the London Waste and Recycling Board) was established in 2007 with a mission to make London a global leader in sustainable ways to live, work and prosper - helping the city to waste less, and reuse, repair, share and recycle more. FoodWave is an EU-funded project covering 17 countries worldwide, whose goal is to create awareness of sustainable approaches to consuming and producing food in cities in order to support climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

The purpose of the hackathon was to challenge students to design an intervention that takes place in a public space (like a shopping mall), and that will mobilise citizens to engage with the topic of the food-climate nexus. The hackathon is a precursor to a larger-scale Food Wave 'Street Action' event which will be hosted at Angel Central in Islington in June.

One of the six Hackathon groups was online, with the others located at Loughborough’s London Campus Stratford who acted as hosts. Students came from a number of universities, were studying a wide variety of subjects, and competed in groups of 4-5. They were all vying for a share of the £1000 top prize, with two runners-up each receiving £150. Teams were allowed to propose any prospective partner organisations and individuals that they deemed appropriate.

The winning proposal was a ‘Cultural Cooking Exhibit’ which noted that Islington has the highest population density in London, most people there were born outside the UK, and 41% of food waste comes from households. The team proposed:
- using local chefs to make meals from restaurant and local market leftovers
- appointing ambassadors to education people how food waste could be minimised
- using livestreams and local partnerships to increase reach

Our online group won a runner-up prize for its proposal which used an online dating app community to provide potential couples for activities including a compatibility quiz based on sustainability questions, as well as activities around food. Other great ideas included a ‘Social Michelin Star’ for food waste champions, virtual reality and a walk-in maze, all with food, cooking and waste minimisation themes and activities.

The teams demonstrated huge energy and enthusiasm, as well as giving some excellent presentations to illustrate their proposals. The judges had a tough job but loved the winning idea’s proposal to target specific communities by providing an intervention that was both enjoyable and culturally relevant".

The AD WG has just obtained some funding from EBNet to assess food waste behaviour within university systems, so expect to see more activity in this area soon.

Links
AD WG https://ebnet.ac.uk/about/wg-details/wg-ad/
ReLondon https://relondon.gov.uk
Food Wave https://www.foodwave.eu

05/04/2022

292 FO Doctor

A post from a very happy postgrad - a little late as his viva was actually a couple of weeks ago: but a great chance to spread the news and celebrate his success

"My name is Khaled Almoalimi, and I just passed my PhD viva with minor corrections. I had the pleasure to be supervised by Dr Yongqiang Liu who gave her wholehearted support and whose valuable insights played a critical role in the shape and content of this work. I also had such great times in the laboratory with my friends, and thanks to Dr Dominic Mann and Pilar Pascual-Hidalgo, who helped me during my experimental work.

My research is on Wastewater Treatment by Forward Osmosis (FO) Based System for Resource Recovery

Although an FO membrane has much lower fouling propensity than reverse osmosis (RO) due to the lower pressure applied to the membrane, fouling is still one of the barriers to FO application. The first technical chapter of this thesis investigated the concentration of synthetic and real municipal wastewater to a 90% water recovery rate using two different configurations, i.e. hollow fibre and flat sheet TFC FO membranes, and looked at their associated fouling and cleaning.

It has been widely reported that FO has very low ammonium rejection primarily due to the negative charge of the membrane. This restricts the application of FO for wastewater treatment particularly with the purpose of ammonium and water recovery. This study thus aimed to enhance ammonium rejection in the FO process by selecting draw solutions (DS) with different physiochemical characteristics.

To recover water from municipal wastewater, FO usually needs to be combined with other technologies. When waste heat is readily available, membrane distillation (MD) offers a promising solution for simultaneous water recovery from DS and DS regeneration. Although the integrated FO-MD system has been studied in the literature, temperature effects and heat balance in such integrated system are unclear. In this study, the effect of FS and DS temperatures was examined.

Overall, my research shows that the FO membrane fouling, associated cleaning methods and ammonium rejection can be enhanced by understanding the feed and draw solutions chemistry. In addition, it highlights the importance of operation temperature when selecting the DS, and the necessity of internal heat recovery in the FO-MD system.

I have published all of my technical chapters which can be found in the links below"

Our warmest congratulations to Khaled!

Links:
Fouling and cleaning of thin film composite forward osmosis membrane treating municipal wastewater for resource recovery https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653521029799
Enhancing ammonium rejection in forward osmosis for wastewater treatment by minimizing cation exchange https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376738822001120
Temperature Effects of MD on Municipal Wastewater Treatment in an Integrated Forward Osmosis and Membrane Distillation Process https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/10/2/355

15/03/2022

291 Journey to Net Zero?

This week's post is from Angela Bywater on a major report released last week:

“There is no way in which we can win the battle against climate change unless we recognise the central role which agriculture must play”. Lord Deben in his introduction to the Royal Agricultural Society of England's ‘Farm of the Future: Journey to Net Zero’ underlines the necessity to engage the UK’s farmers and landowners in the country’s decarbonisation journey.

Launched at the Low Carbon Agriculture Show on 8 March, the report recognises that farmers essentially ‘cycle carbon’ into soils and food, and that it is necessary to take a holistic approach to decarbonising the sector. This includes sequestering carbon in soils and plants, reducing fossil fuel use (including fossil-based fertilisers), continuing the transition to renewable technologies and improving efficiency in, for example, the livestock sector.

Food production, however, is only part of a larger supply chain, so the ‘Journey to Net Zero’ work also included four ‘enterprise journeys’ written by sector experts illustrating how individual supply chains might decarbonise: intensive agriculture, cereals, horticulture and dairy.

Because of its importance to the sector, a separate paper on transport was also included, with major contributions by Cenex, one of the project partners and experts on low carbon vehicles. Electric vehicles, hydrogen internal combustion engines and fuel cells and biomethane in tractors and transport will play an increasingly important role.

The 'vision' for the report was to showcase practical ways that agriculture could employ to decarbonise the sector now and to highlight technologies and practices that might be part of the immediate future. Near-commercial initiatives such as biomethanisation, robotics, artificial intelligence and 5G ‘internet of things’ technologies form part of the vision for the future.

A policy-focussed version was produced for COP26 which included a number of recommendations, including the introduction of policies to increase the use of waste materials such as slurries and manures through small-scale anaerobic digestion; initiatives to support farmers in their post-Brexit transition with research, knowledge exchange, advice and technology demonstration sites; and to ensure that a robust roadmap for removing the red diesel subsidy was in place.

Alonmg with the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE), this work was supported by the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust, the Midlands Energy Hub and the Environmental Biotechnology Network.

Angie, who is EBNet’s co-Manager and the Lead Editor on the report, said “It is clear that some of the research we do in the environmental biotechnology field can play an important part in decarbonising agriculture and that academic work in the field of carbon accounting and life cycle analysis form an important part of measuring our progress in this decarbonisation journey”.

The new reports have been welcomed by the farming community and received strong press coverage showing the real need for information, research and practical help in this area.
The reports can be accessed online at https://www.rase.org.uk/reports. Farmers Guardian and Energy Now will be publishing articles this week, and see below for more links and coverage.

Links:
Farming UK https://www.farminguk.com/news/rural-decarbonisation-lies-in-the-hands-of-farmers-report-says_59994.html?fbclid=IwAR1-7O1CTmpPG6Hy_1BjAq29cjkbrdrxuOvQgJ5xWB2aURjp7OWcc1quTIg
Farmers Weekly https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/environment/carbon/report-outlines-ways-for-farms-to-move-to-carbon-net-zero
Horticulture Week https://www.hortweek.com/rase-launches-farm-future-journey-net-zero-report/fresh-produce/article/1748763
Cenex https://www.cenex.co.uk/news/cenex-contributes-to-rases-farm-of-the-future-journey-to-net-zero-reports/

25/02/2022

290 More exotica - tardigrades

We planned to do a post on a research project, but have left it a bit late this week. So instead a quick item on one of the most extraordinary organisms we know of, which also plays a small role in water and wastewater treatment.

Tardigrades are multicellular invertebrates, about 0.5 mm in length, which are able to survive some of the most extreme conditions encountered on earth - or even in space. They occur across an extremely wide range of habitats, from polar ice to deep sea trenches and everything between. Different species can withstand exposure to temperatures from -273 oC (i.e. close to absolute zero!) up to 150 oC, pressures from vacuum to 6000 bar, oxygen deprivation, dehydration and very high doses of ionising radiation. They can be desiccated to

17/02/2022

289 Mercury clean-up

Last week in a session on old-style micro-pollutants, students on the CENV6158 Wastewater Process Engineering module looked at a case study of mercury in the River Nura in Kazakhstan. Our group was involved in this: so we thought it was time for another in our occasional series on Prof Tanton's work on mercury (see also posts 238, 244, 256).

The images are from another project carried out at the Khimprom Chlor-alkali plant in Pavlodar, a city on the transboundary River Irtysh in northern Kazakhstan. The history of the site is fascinating: it produced chlorine and caustic soda in large brine electrolytic cells with mercury electrodes. The products were sold to various industries, but the chlorine was also used on site to produce organochlorine pesticides and nerve agents. When it closed at the break-up of the USSR a new facility was under development for manufacture of the novel Novichok nerve agents. The chlor-alkali plant operated from 1975 to 1993 and the amount of mercury consumed in that period was over 1.5 kg/tonne of product, compared to typical values of less than 1 kg/tonne for systems of this type. Losses occurred in process sludges and emissions to atmosphere, but the vast majority was through spills and leakage which passed through the concrete floor into the ground below. The overall amount of mercury released was on the order of 2000 tonnes, about ten times that in the River Nura.

In 2000 a project to develop cost-effective methods of minimising the mercury risk at the site was funded by the EU FP5-INCO-2 Programme, with an international team led by Prof Tanton. The work included site studies of soil and groundwater to establish the extent of the pollution around the workshop and related hotspots such as the wastewater settling lagoons and nearby Lake Balkyldak. It recommended a clean-up strategy for the site, and containment of the workshop area to control the spread of a plume of contaminated groundwater towards the River Irtysh from the most polluted areas. Groundwater pollution models were developed to explore the future spread of the pollution plume and investigate the impact of different intervention measures. As a result the most polluted sites were isolated within 20 m deep bentonite cut-off walls to isolate the source of the plume. The modelling showed that a result of the geology, topography and hydrology the mercury in the plume is likely to accumulate on a depression some 2 km north of the factory site. The main clean-up work was carried out by 2005 but a programme of monitoring of the intensive network of boreholes we installed has continued in order to establish the effectiveness of the intervention measures and the predictive modelling, with several recently-published papers reporting on the current distribution and partitioning of this challenging pollutant.

This is a brief description of a very exciting piece of work with many complex elements: you can find much more information in papers published by our group and others. But as with the River Nura case study, the take-home message is probably that these sites require huge efforts to clean them up, and that controlling the pollution requires a coordinated approach between many areas of science and engineering.

Links:
Project https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/ICA2-CT-2000-10029

Post 238 https://www.facebook.com/environmental.lab.university.of.southampton/posts/1728360397325077
Post 244 https://www.facebook.com/environmental.lab.university.of.southampton/posts/1788440414650408
Post 256 https://www.facebook.com/environmental.lab.university.of.southampton/posts/1865498833611232

08/02/2022

288 Sludge assessment

Processing of wastewater biosolids, also known as sewage sludge, is a big issue for the water industry. This is due both to the unpleasant nature of the material, and to the large volumes involved. As a result, estimates indicate that it typically accounts for around half the cost of wastewater treatment.

As students on our CENV3059 module will learn in a few weeks' time, sludges are complex biological substances that can contain large amounts of water. Separation of the liquid phase and concentration of the solid fraction can therefore bring major benefits both in the cost and environmental impact of transporting sludges; and in the organic loading rates that can be applied to biological treatment processes like anaerobic digestion.

Capillary Suction Time (CST) is a key parameter that is used to assess sludge dewaterability, in scientific research and in industry. The test was originally developed at the Water Research Centre in the late 1960s, though it is probably most widely used now outside the UK.

Triton Electronics is a market leader in the manufacture of CST apparatus, and has recently been working to update and improve its equipment. The company contacted our group because it wanted to test the performance of the modified design, comparing it with the original and identifying any new capabilities. It also believes that current moves towards a more sustainable circular bioeconomy will create both opportunities and challenges. Changes include the introduction of new feedstocks, such as food and agro-wastes; and of new processes like low-temperature anaerobic treatments and biorefinery fermentations. The resulting sludges and digestates are likely to have very different properties from the more familiar and traditional waste activated sludge, so new test protocols may be required.

So Triton applied to EBNet for a Business Innovation Voucher (BIV) to test the new system and explore its potential with some of these materials. This funding has just been awarded, with work due to start very soon. Dr Yue Zhang, the Southampton team leader, said "Our main task is to assess the equipment in conjunction with the company. Where possible we also hope to link the results to other physico-chemical and biological parameters, to provide an enhanced understanding of the factors that can affect sludge dewaterability in tests and in future real-world applications".

Links:
Triton Electronics Ltd http://www.tritonel.com
EBNet BIVs https://ebnet.ac.uk/funding/business-interaction-vouchers-biv
Dr Zhang www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/yuezhang.page

03/02/2022

287 What is environmental biotechnology?

A short post today as the aim is to pass on the link to EBNet's new 3-min video on this topic.

Why is EBNet tackling this? The goal is to make people familiar with the term and raise its profile as a profession. As our Prof Heaven is fond of saying, water and waste management are among the world's biggest biotech industries: but they are sometimes seen as old-fashioned and even 'dirty' - lacking the glamour of high-value biotech. In fact, of course, the sector is at the front line of creating a more sustainable world, whether it is cleaning up existing pollution or enabling the circular bioeconomy. And having EB as a single concept also emphasises the vital importance of whole-life, cross-discipline and cross-sector approaches.

EBNet's mission statement focuses on microbial systems, but perhaps the term should be even broader - shouldn't macrophyte-based systems also be regarded as EB? Do you consider yourself an Environmental Biotechnologist, and do you think the concept is helpful - e.g. giving the public and politicians a better understanding of what we do, and helping to attract funding and bring yet more enthusiastic and innovative people into this field? Readers of this page know the interface between biosciences and engineering is a hugely exciting place to work, with the added satisfaction of doing something useful. So let's hope the video does its job - and if you have any views or suggestions, pass them on to EBNet!

Links to video:
On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMUW6l0lC78&t=16s
On EBNet page https://ebnet.ac.uk

25/01/2022

286 Go-ahead for gas?

Congratulations to Angie Bywater and Sigrid Kusch for their newly-published paper looking at on-farm anaerobic digestion at a time when multiple factors are strongly affecting its viability, especially in the UK. The origins of this paper date back several years, to a study carried out with the John Lewis Partnership on the potential for an AD plant at their Leckford Estate. The work was supported by an ADNet Business Innovation Voucher, and its main conclusion was that despite many practical advantages the economics did not stack up. Which prompts the question - if an engaged and motivated company with a strong green agenda and access to far greater resources than the average UK farm business can't make it work, who can?

Fast forward to the present, and a maelstrom of practical and legislative changes. First, a chance to reconsider greenhouse gas implications after COP26, where many countries including the UK signed up to Methane Pledges. Second a global rise in energy prices, which have a major effect on the viability of renewable energy production. (Some of the more radical members in our group argue this may not be all bad: we are tired of seeing studies that show renewable and sustainable options can't match fossil prices - surely the point is, we can't afford the final bill on the latter...?). Third, a vacuum in UK policy as old incentive schemes have closed while the new Green Gas Initiative is not yet formulated - plus of course looming changes to many relevant UK regulations as a result of Brexit. The paper looks at this a moment of combined opportunity and threat, and uses an update on the Leckford study to review viability and identify incentive levels that would allow realisation of the many benefits of on-farm AD.

Angie Bywater is of course one of the joint Network Managers for EBNet which is hosted by Southampton; but as many of you know she is an authority on AD in her own right with extensive industry contacts and experience. She is working with the Royal Agricultural Society of England on its updated report, runs her own home AD plant - and will shortly be giving a guest lecture on our CENV6141 Bioenergy module. Sigrid Kusch is a long-standing Visiting Research Fellow, who also works with the University of Applied Sciences Ulm and is currently advising a region in Germany on how to develop a bioeconomy strategy. She is also on the Editorial Board of Waste Management and Research and acts as a guest editor for a range of journals. Very proud to have these guys as members and supporters of our group, and to see how their work is helping to carry results through from lab scale to real-world applications

Paper:
Bywater, A. M. and Kusch-Brandt, S. Exploring Farm Anaerobic Digester Economic Viability in a Time of Policy Change in the UK. Processes 2022, 10(2), 212. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/10/2/212/htm

Links:
Leckford https://leckfordestate.co.uk/
ADNet http://www.anaerobicdigestionnet.com
Angie Bywater https://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/amb1a13.page
Sigrid Kusch https://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/sk19g09.page

18/01/2022

285 Plastic action

A great opportunity, on a day when the BBC and leading UK news providers are highlighting this issue, to mention some events and activities on plastics pollution. The topic is the subject of new reports by the UN and the Environmental Investigation Agency which is calling for a binding international treaty to control both production and waste.

Right on time, an EBNet webinar is scheduled for Thurs 20 Jan. The Chair is Dr Alice Horton of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton, who also leads the UK Microplastics Network: her own work focuses on identifying and quantifying microplastics and their effects on organisms in the aquatic environment. For more details of speakers and topics, see links below.

Many people in the group are actively concerned about plastics, both as responsible citizens and in their professional careers. So a quick mention here for just some of the angles being covered by current and former members. These include:
- Work on production of bioplastic precursors from waste sources by Seongbong Heo and Dr Yongqiang Liu (see e.g. posts)
- Bioplastics degradation in anaerobic digestion systems by Wei Zhang and others: see below for some images by Prof Francisco of the University of Murcia. These were only taken as an afterthought in the project, but revealed some fascinating insights. Dr Yue Zhang is also involved in proposals in this area with other groups in the Faculty, and we would love to do more work on this...
- Plastic-degrading enzymes: former postdoc Dr Stefano Gandolfi is now at the University of Portsmouth's Centre for Enzyme Innovation which is part of a big initiative to tackle different aspects of plastics pollution
- Plastic behaviour: Dr Keiron Roberts, also now at Portsmouth, led a study on plastic from discarded PPE which has surged during the Covid-19 pandemic: other team members include Prof Ian Williams and Dr Anne Stringfellow in our Faculty

We know other current and former colleagues are active on this issue around the world, working in waste management and environmental protection as well as academia. Good luck with your research and efforts because this is truly a major human impact on the planet

Webinar:
Biological and Technological Solutions to Microplastic Pollution
https://ebnet.ac.uk/ebnet-webinar-biological-and-technological-solutions-to-microplastic-pollution/

Papers:
Roberts, K.P., Phang, S.C., Williams, J.B., Hutchinson, D.J., Kolstoe, S.E., de Bie, J., Williams, I.D. and Stringfellow, A.M., 2021. Increased personal protective equipment litter as a result of COVID-19 measures. Nature Sustainability, pp.1-8.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00824-1
Zhang, W., Torrella, F., Banks, C.J. and Heaven, S., 2019. Data related to anaerobic digestion of bioplastics: Images and properties of digested bioplastics and digestate, synthetic food waste recipe and packaging information. Data in brief, 25, p.103990.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340919303439

Posts:
PHB https://www.facebook.com/environmental.lab.university.of.southampton/posts/1959279894233125-

11/01/2022

284 Adsorption advances

Another new paper from Dr Yongqiang Liu's ongoing collaboration with colleagues at the Southwest Petroleum University in Chengdu, China. The work concerns removal of a range of pollutants by different adsorption mechanisms and processes: one of Dr Liu's particular interests is dyes and colourants used in the textile industry and in printing (see e.g. posts 153 and 252)

Depending on their chemical nature, dyes can have toxic, carcinogenic and/or mutagenic properties. Treatment processes based on adsorption are popular as they can be effective, simple to install and relatively easy to operate. The focus of research is thus mainly on creating new adsorbents that have higher capacity, lower capital and operating costs and greater sustainability.

In the current research the team worked on a hydrogel polymer system. These hydrogels are water insoluble but form a 3-D structure which expands by absorbing water. The polymer can then be modified to increase its performance and selectivity by inclusion of reactive particles or monomers

The study involved extensive characterisation of a novel modified hydrogel developed by the team, with testing of its adsorption performance and kinetics using methylene blue. Techniques used for characterisation included scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to show the structure, Fourier Transform-Infra red (FT-IR) analysis to confirm successful inclusion of desired components into the modified hydrogel, and Energy Dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to demonstrate changes in the adsorption capacity.

Absorption kinetics and isotherms were modelled using first and second order equations and Langmuir and Redlich-Peterson models.

The modified hydrogel showed a large increase in capacity compared to 15 adsorbents from a wide range of types previously tested in the literature. It also responded well to repeated cycles of adsorption and elution. As an additional trial the authors tested it against a number of other dyes and found it showed relatively good performance with Rhodamine B, another cationic dye.

Congratulations to the authors and we hope this work can be translated into practice in effective treatment systems for protection of the environment and human health

Reference:
Wang, J.W., Dai, L., Liu, Y.Q., Li, R.F., Yang, X.T., Lan, G.H., Qiu, H.Y. and Xu, B., 2021. Adsorption properties of β-cyclodextrin modified hydrogel for methylene blue. Carbohydrate Research, 501, p.108276.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008621521000458

Other links:
Post 153
https://www.facebook.com/environmental.lab.university.of.southampton/posts/1029823523845438
Post 252 https://www.facebook.com/environmental.lab.university.of.southampton/posts/1827685390725910
Dr Liu https://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/yl5f12.page
Southwest Petroleum University https://www.swpu.edu.cn/en/

06/01/2022

283 Algal raceways

We have a couple of posts ready on new papers etc, but have left it rather late this week so for now just want to share with you this item from our sister Hydraulics Lab page. Regular readers will know they are working on the hydraulic design and energy efficiency of algal raceway systems: a fascinating topic because this is a brilliant example of where the engineering aspects of a culture system interact exttensively with its biological characteristics and performance. We hope to see more cross-over work on this in our labs in future!

Environmental Lab University of Southampton

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