Water Reuse and Environmental Process Engineering

The Water Reuse and Environmental Process Engineering program has the scientific capability to enable:

• indirect water reuse for drinking and other uses
• to meet acute urban water shortfalls, and assess impacts
• improve design of water-sensitive ecosystems in urban environments.

The program comprises 23 research staff.

Skills and expertise

The program's skills and expertise include:

• scientists in the disciplines of mathematics, biotechnology and microbiology, analytical and environmental chemistry, geochemistry, engineering, physics, hydrology, hydrogeology and soil science
• integration of biological, chemical and physical controls on chemical fate in groundwater environments
• multiphase fluid dynamics and non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) science
• remediation and treatments tests taken to field demonstration
• geomicrobiology and mining biotechnology
• geochemisty of materials, especially for their beneficail applications in ecosystem manipulation and water treatment
• pathogen transport and survival, and assessment of pathogen risk in water reuse schemes.

Assets

The program's assets include Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) accredited advanced analytical organic chemistry, molecular biology and microbiology laboratories as well as a soil physics laboratory and a large soil column facility.

The program also has instrumented field sites in a number of locations around Australia, including the Bolivar Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) site, Salisbury aquifer storage, transfer and recovery (ASTR) site, the Floreat Infiltration Gallery and the BP Refinery at Kwinana.

Key contact

Peter Franzmann
Research Program Leader