Wider Uptake of water-smart solutions

About the project

Start date project: 15 May 2020

Expected end date: 15 May 2024

Keywords research project: Wastewater reuse, safety, microbial risk, bio-composite materials.

Cooperation with other institutes
INTEF and NTNU in Norway, TU Delft in the Netherlands, Czech Technical University and The University of Chemistry and Technology Prague in the Czech Republic, Universita degli studi di Palermo in Italy and CSIR in Ghana.

Research objectives 
Risk analysis on bio-composite materials made with products recovered from wastewater. In particular, the goal is to understand what health risks people could be exposed to by using these type of products.

Project outline

Introduction
Waternet and the industry SME partner, NPSP, have succeeded in producing the prototype of a new biocomposite material made from resources recovered from the whole water cycle but several issues remain to be addressed before this material can be offered to the markets.A general procedure for monitoring and control of health and quality risks that can account for the multi-actor contributions to the risks in symbiotic relations between water utilities and industries will be developed. The project will also produce a database for compilation of data from the different case studies. The methodology and database will be tested and validated in the case studies in an interaction with the local partners.

Approach
Health and risks will be based on the EU proposal of regulation for the use of recycled water, and existing standards for microbiological and chemical parameters.

The first step means literature researches about microbial risk in the wastewater reuse and the methodologies to analyse this risk. After the next step is to understand the production process of bio-based materials from wastewater and evaluate the possibility presence of hazards and risks.