The water industry is the fourth most energy intensive secotr in the UK and uses approximately 2 -3 % of net UK electricity releasing approximately four million tonnes of green house gas emissions (carbon dioxide equivalent) every year. The industry is making progress to produce more renewable energy from its waste biomass sources. However, only 493 GWh was generated by water utilities in the UK in 2005/06 about 6.4 % of its actual requirements. The government has called for research into potentially more efficient energy generation technologies from biomass which would contribute significantly to the UK's policy objectives of 10% of electricity supply from renewable energy by 2010 and for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Innovative research into low carbon treatment and production and storage and use of biogas in the water sector has the potential to offer step-change benefits to the UK's energy system. This project seeks to secure a paradigm shift in wastewater treatment and biogas application. A pilot scale feasibility study is proposed to examine: (1) the fundamental operation of an anaerobic bioreactor using fortified influent wastewater; and (2) increasing the energy-production capacity of the generated renewable biogas. This approach significantly alters the wastewater treatment flow-sheet by reducing dependence on the energy intensive activated sludge process. The project has the potential for UK energy savings of 0.12 kWh per cubic metre of wastewater treated. Over 1 million cubic metres of wastewater are treated every day which potentially corresponds to savings of 438GWh per year and 188,469 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. This is approximately equivalent to off setting 122,000 people flying London to New York return. Potentially fortified anaerobic treatment will also yield >10 % more biogas than is currently available from anaerobic digesters. Therefore, it is important to increase its energy production capacity in line with government developments for local energy and increased energy security. Currently biogas is used in combined heat and power in the UK water sector but biogas use in fuel cells, as a transport gas and for gas supply could provide greater flexibility and efficiency with more storage opportunities. However, these applications require biogas to be upgraded. This project seeks to examine in-situ methane enrichment to provide a better economy of scale for upgrading biogas and thereby maximising the overall energy production capacity of wastewater carbon. This project will therefore help to provide the 'scientific advance and industrial innovation to utilise biomass to meet the increasing demands for sustainable products from renewable sources' called for by the government.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The water that you drink and use to flush the toilet all needs to be treated to provide everyone with safe drinking water and to protect the environment. However, this treatment uses a large amount of energy (8,000 GWh) each year. This is equivalent to you running about 100 million tumble driers non-stop for a year.The energy that is used for water and wastewater treatment comes from non-renewable fossil fuel energy resources such as coal, oil and gas. Furthermore, when they are used they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which contributes to global warming. Therefore, if the amount of energy that is used to treat your drinking water can be reduced then less non-renewable energy resources will be used up and less carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere. In our proposal we intend to establish a network of people to develop research ideas to reduce energy use in water and wastewater treament. Some of the projects we will be looking at will include developing new treatment processes which use less energy. We will also examine increasing the production of more biogas. Biogas is produced during wastewater treatment and can be used to supply energy instead of using fossil fuels. We also intend to develop a web site and stage a number of meetings in the UK so that good ideas regarding energy use can be passed to others. The people that are going to be in the network include all the major water companies like Thames, Severn Trent, Yorkshire, Northumbrian, Anglian and United Utilities, government orgnisations like the Environment Agency and other Universities namely Imperial College, Strathcylde, Birmingham, Warwick and Edinburgh. They all have particular expertise in either water or wastewater treatment processes or in energy conservation and renewable energy.

The quality of potable water is of vital importance to public health. However, contamination events are observed to occur even in the tiny volume (relative to total supply volume) of the samples collected for regulatory purposes. These events are often unexplained. A possible source of such contamination is pollutant ingress into the distribution system from the surrounding soil and water. Such ingress can occur through the many apertures normally associated with leakage, at times when low or negative pressure conditions occur such as due to hydraulic transients (water hammer).This project will investigate the currently unknown potential for such contaminant ingress into potable water distribution systems by direct measurement utilising a specially developed laboratory facility. Laboratory studies are necessary to address difficulties associated with the short response duration of transient events and the costs, complexity and regulatory unacceptability of field studies. The experimental set up will be full scale and include surrounding ground conditions and a contaminant flow field (for example, an adjacent leaky sewer). Initial studies will investigate the influence of the characteristics of the transients (magnitude, duration etc.) while further studies will investigate the influence of aperture shape, geometry and location.The experiments will provide quantitative evidence of the conditions causing ingress which will be used to develop a new ingress model which, together with existing modelling tools, will enable quantification of the potential for contaminant ingress. The outputs from the new modelling approach will inform improvements to distribution system design, operation and maintenance, management of pollution incidents and ultimately result in improved drinking water quality.The project will be undertaken at the University of Sheffield, with advice and support from Professor Bryan Karney of Toronto University, an international expert in transient analysis and in collaboration with Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal for access to the best currently available relevant field data.