New Wastewater Treatment Technology in the Works

On June 24th, 2009, a new agreement between two research institutes was singed, stating that they would engage in actively looking for a new means of treating heavily polluted waters. At this point, the product is treated in regular decontamination plants, but these facilities are oftentimes inadequate to thoroughly clean all the harmful substances, which eventually find their way in the underground water, from where they reach people's homes. Now, the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (NTU-NEWRI), based at the Nanyang Technological University, and the company Sembcorp Industries (Sembcorp) have taken it upon themselves to come along with an improved method of filtering wastewater.

The main goal of the three-year contract is to devise a treatment water that would remove “entrenched” organic matter from the wastes. At this point, mutated microorganisms, including bacteria, microbes and other parasites, do not die easily, mostly on account of the fact that exposure to some very damaging chemicals in the wastewater caused them to mutate and become immune to regular solutions treatment plants employed to destroy them.

The $1-million investment will see the new method being able to remove wastes that do not biodegrade as well. One good example of this is plastic, but also oil, which take tens to hundreds of years to break up in normal conditions. “We are happy to take our R&D collaboration with NTU-NEWRI a step further with this joint testbed for new wastewater treatment technology. This underscores Sembcorp's commitment to applying best available technology to meet our customers' water and wastewater treatment needs,” the President and CEO of Sembcorp Group, Mr. Tang Kin Fei, said, when the agreement was signed at the Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) 2009.

The “NTU team has developed an innovative patented process, which is well suited for the treatment of industrial wastewater. This process models nature's way of cleaning the water. It is likely that this technology can be more competitive than other technologies. We are happy to collaborate with Sembcorp and develop this testbed and explore the technology further,” the Principal Investigator for the NTU team, Associate Professor Volodymyr Ivanov, added.

“Launched in 2008, NEWRI provides a clearly defined window through which industry and research partners can access NTU's comprehensive EWT capabilities. This partnership with Sembcorp is a good demonstration of NEWRI's goal of translating cutting-edge new water technology research and bringing it to an industry eager to benefit society and lead in an expanding market,” the Executive Director of NTU-NEWRI, Professor Ng Wun Jern, concluded.