Director Daniel H. Zitomer, Ph.D., P.E.
The Water Quality Center brings researchers, industry, and other clients together to solve problems related to lake, river, and groundwater quality. These problems often involve municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater, stormwater runoff, and drinking water. Research is often multi-disciplinary, and is performed by experts from engineering in association with economics, mathematics, law, nursing, environmental science, biology, and other disciplines. Present projects include bioaugmentation for enhanced anaerobic biotreatment of industrial wastewater, enhanced biotreatment of paper mill wastewater, anaerobic biotechnology for energy generation from waste, and enhanced nitrogen removal from municipal wastewater.
International Work
The center also has expertise in international drinking water, sanitation, and public health programs in developing countries, with ongoing projects in Kenya, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. “Water is a limited natural resource and a public good fundamental for life. The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity.”* In Kenya, center researchers, in association with Marquette College of Nursing and CH2M-Hill, have performed water development studies to support HIV/AIDS care. In Guatemala, center personnel have worked to develop drinking water systems in San Lucal Toliman, Santa Cruz del Quiche, and other regions as well as plan sewerage and wastewater treatment systems for San Benito. In El Salvador, wastewater treatment plant operations have been reviewed and suggestions have been made to enhance process performance.
The Center maintains a 3,700 square-feet laboratory facility that includes instrumentation (gas chromatographs, high-pressure liquid chromatographs, atomic adsorption spectrophotometers, a total organic carbon analyzer, etc.) And space for testing and applied research.
*United Nations Economic and Social Council, Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, The Right to Water, General Comment No. 15, 2002. |
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