Final Report Summary - BITA (Bioprocess and Control Engineering for Wastewater Treatment)
The purpose of the BITA network is to establish and reinforce scientific collaboration between the five partners of the proposed consortium via the stimulation of research and education activities between the members of the academic groups of the network in the field of biological wastewater treatment, and more specifically of anaerobic digestion (AD) processes, and of its optimization by means of modeling, monitoring and process control techniques.
Anaerobic processes refer to a diverse array of biological wastewater treatment systems from which dissolved oxygen and nitrate are excluded. They are operated to convert biodegradable organic matter to biogas, which may include hydrogen, methane and carbon dioxide. In an anaerobic reactor, different bacterial species coexist and are responsible for the breakdown of complex organic molecules to a final end product consisting of methane and carbon dioxide.
Anaerobic digestion processes are receiving increased attention as a core process for next-generation wastewater treatment systems. Two areas which are receiving a high level of international research are activated sludge biosolids management (Batstone et al., 2009) and full recovery of resources, including water, nutrients, and energy. Anaerobic digestion is a core component of this new concept, as the key biochemical process for mobilisation of energy and nutrients. This concept for wastewater treatment is similarly applicable to industrial, agricultural, and municipal solid wastes, offering
widespread opportunity for nutrient and energy recovery.
The scientific activities within the BITA network are organized around the following three main streams, that are considered as research priorities for the consortium among the challenging scientific and technological issues that can be identified in the field of the design and control of anaerobic digestion (AD) processes while allowing to emphasize the strong scientific specifities of each partner involved in BITA :
- Modeling, monitoring, instrumentation, supervision and control of AD processes (WP1)
- Microbial population dynamics (WP2)
- Energy recovery from liquid and solid wastes by using different reactor configurations (WP3)
The network takes advantage of its past experience of scientific cooperation, in particular that of the BITA network financed by the EU-Mexican funding agency FONCICyT involving the same consortium.
Overall, the objectives of the BITA network are as follows:
- to generate joint research activities in existing research projects, by transfer of information and reciprocal visits.
- to enable the use of specific experimental, modelling, monitoring and control tools available in one group, by researchers from the other groups.
- to enhance the professional development of MSc and PhD students by intensified interactions with researchers in the other groups working on similar topics. This will be established by fully reciprocal visits of both permanent scientific staff members and MSc and PhD students, some of the PhD students being enrolled in co-supervision between two partners with funding from outside of the BITA project. The objective is then to come up with the co-supervision of 6 students, with an a priori distribution of two co-supervised PhD students per WP, with one co-supervisor from Mexico and one from Europe.
Anaerobic processes refer to a diverse array of biological wastewater treatment systems from which dissolved oxygen and nitrate are excluded. They are operated to convert biodegradable organic matter to biogas, which may include hydrogen, methane and carbon dioxide. In an anaerobic reactor, different bacterial species coexist and are responsible for the breakdown of complex organic molecules to a final end product consisting of methane and carbon dioxide.
Anaerobic digestion processes are receiving increased attention as a core process for next-generation wastewater treatment systems. Two areas which are receiving a high level of international research are activated sludge biosolids management (Batstone et al., 2009) and full recovery of resources, including water, nutrients, and energy. Anaerobic digestion is a core component of this new concept, as the key biochemical process for mobilisation of energy and nutrients. This concept for wastewater treatment is similarly applicable to industrial, agricultural, and municipal solid wastes, offering
widespread opportunity for nutrient and energy recovery.
The scientific activities within the BITA network are organized around the following three main streams, that are considered as research priorities for the consortium among the challenging scientific and technological issues that can be identified in the field of the design and control of anaerobic digestion (AD) processes while allowing to emphasize the strong scientific specifities of each partner involved in BITA :
- Modeling, monitoring, instrumentation, supervision and control of AD processes (WP1)
- Microbial population dynamics (WP2)
- Energy recovery from liquid and solid wastes by using different reactor configurations (WP3)
The network takes advantage of its past experience of scientific cooperation, in particular that of the BITA network financed by the EU-Mexican funding agency FONCICyT involving the same consortium.
Overall, the objectives of the BITA network are as follows:
- to generate joint research activities in existing research projects, by transfer of information and reciprocal visits.
- to enable the use of specific experimental, modelling, monitoring and control tools available in one group, by researchers from the other groups.
- to enhance the professional development of MSc and PhD students by intensified interactions with researchers in the other groups working on similar topics. This will be established by fully reciprocal visits of both permanent scientific staff members and MSc and PhD students, some of the PhD students being enrolled in co-supervision between two partners with funding from outside of the BITA project. The objective is then to come up with the co-supervision of 6 students, with an a priori distribution of two co-supervised PhD students per WP, with one co-supervisor from Mexico and one from Europe.