The Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater (CTWW) is a leading research centre in the field of alternative water sources.
The relative scarcity of water as a resource is a major global issue that is further exacerbated by rapid economic development, population growth, and most significantly, global warming. Through our centre, we seek to develop water and wastewater technologies that can be applied in residential, commercial and industrial environments.
Our team is focused on the development of innovative technologies that deliver abundant supplies of recycled, desalinated and harvested storm water. Through our centre we aim to develop technologies that enable us to:
- Provide water security for community and industry through water reuse and desalination
- Extract and recirculate water, energy, and resources for enhanced economic, environmental, and social benefits
- Use water to improve liveability through the development blue infrastructure
- Reduce the carbon footprint of water intensive activities
While CTWW projects focus largely on urban water supplies and industrial water systems, we also undertake research projects that respond to rural and regional water issues.
LAB LEAD
Professor Long Nghiem
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Whether it is for maintaining natural ecosystems, crop irrigation, creating waterparks, drinking water supply, or enabling industrial processes, the ability to effectively and efficiently capture and manage water, filter and supply clean water, and purify wastewater is essential. There is a growing urgency to develop technology and processes that will ensure every drop of water is captured and used to its maximum potential and at the least impact on the environment. This urgency is compounded by a changing climate, a greater variability in supply, ageing infrastructure in our cities and towns, and the emergence of water-hungry industrial processes such as the creation of green hydrogen and the purification of critical minerals for the renewable energy industry.
Our researchers develop new technologies and smart water systems to improve water supply security and sustainability to households and businesses in quantity and matching quality to specific usage. We explore new techniques to regenerate and modernise existing water infrastructure in a way that is cost effective, safe and reliable without needing to rebuild from the ground up. We also develop and work with the industry to implement new technologies for recovering resources and energy to minimise the carbon footprint of wastewater purification.
We are developing nanomaterials and new membrane technologies that can make water and wastewater treatment more efficient and cost effective, and that can support a circular economy by capturing valuable resources such as phosphorus for re-use instead of allowing it to flow into the ocean.
Applications of our research are relevant globally across sectors ranging government, council, water utilities, mining and energy/resource extraction industries and the agribusiness sector. The work from our centre has a global reach. UTS is globally ranked #1 in Water Resources by US News and #2 in research contribution to SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation by Times Higher Education.
Analytical Instruments
- Total/dissolved organic carbon analyser
- Ion chromatography equipment
- High performance liquid chromatography equipment
- Atomic absorption spectrometer
- Microwave plasma-atomic emission spectrometer
- Gas chromatography mass spectrometer (Triple quad)
- Liquid chromatography mass spectrometer (Single quad)
- UV-analyser
- Zetasizer
- Fourier transform infrared spectrometer
- Field-flow fractionation
- Malvern 2000 particle size analyser
- Contact angle analyser
- Automatic sieving system
- Vacuum drying oven
- Drying oven
- Furnace oven
- Ultrasonic bath
- Merck spectrophotometer
- HACH spectrophotometer
- Inline pressure measurement system
- Automated titration system
Membrane and media filtration systems
Lab scale systems
- Reverse osmosis system
- Lab scale direct contact membrane distillation system
- Lab scale cross flow micro-filtration, ultra-filtration and nano-filtration system
- Lab scale dead-end micro-filtration, ultra-filtration and nano-filtration system
- Lab scale modified fouling index and silt density index measurement system
- Lab scale electro spinning system for membrane fabrication
- Lab scale membrane bioreactor system
- Lab scale forward osmosis system
- Lab scale bio-filtration system
- Lab scale media filtration system
- Pilot scale stainless steel membrane filtration system
Pilot scale systems
- Pilot scale membrane bioreactor system
- Pilot scale ultra-filtration system
- Pilot scale reverse osmosis system
- Pilot forward osmosis system
- Pilot scale vacuum membrane distillation system