Course credits 3 Hp

Basic course information

Education level: Third cycle

Grade: Fail/Pass; U/G

Subject: Wastewater engineering

Swedish name: Resursåtervinning i avloppsvatten

Entry requirements

This course is open for PhD students and professionals interested in wastewater treatment and recycling. For external course participants, a Master's Exam in Water and Environmental Engineering or similar is needed.

Course examiner

 Associate Professor Sahar Dalahmeh, KTH and Uppsala University

Course aims

At the end of the course you should be able to:

-          Understand the composition of wastewater and identify key recoverable resources.

-          Critically evaluate advanced technologies for resource recovery.

-          Discuss innovative solutions to enhance sustainability in wastewater management.

-          Analyze technical, regulatory, environmental, and societal drivers impacting the recovery and utilization of wastewater resource.

Course content

This PhD-level course explores the recovery and utilization of resources from wastewater, including water, energy, nutrients, and materials. Emphasis is placed on advanced technologies, and trends in wastewater treatment for resource recovery. The course starts with fundamental knowledge on wastewater composition and the potential resources in it. It will facilitate the learning about innovative, advanced wastewater treatment technologies for resource recovery (energy, carbon, nutrients, water) from different streams of wastewater (blackwater, urine, greywater, mixed wastewater) and by-products (sludge). It will shed light on potential utilization fields of water, carbon, and nutrients (water treatment, agriculture, industry, etc). Finally, it describes briefly technical and organizational challenges towards effective utilization of wastewater resources.

The course of composed of these modules:

Module 1: Wastewater as a Resource

-          Historical perspective of wastewater treatment and resource utilization in wastewater

-          Chemical and biological composition of wastewater and quantitative assessment of resource potential in wastewater streams

Module 2: Resource Recovery Technologies

-          Water Recovery and Reuse: Advanced technologies and case studies on potable and non-potable reuse

-          Nutrient Recovery: Technologies like struvite precipitation and ammonia stripping, Blackwater concentration, and urine drying for nitrogen and phosphorus recovery

-          Energy Recovery: Anaerobic digestion and biogas production of sludge, microbial fuel, and electrolysis for hydrogen production from wastewater, heat recovery, and energy efficiency in wastewater treatment plants

-          Material Recovery from sewage sludge: Extraction of heavy metals and rare earth elements, pyrolysis for carbon production.

Module 3. Organizational, Environmental, and Social Aspects

 -Regulatory framework, challenges, and drivers for transformation towards effective utilization of wastewater resources.

Course activities

The course includes scheduled lectures, literature reading, peer discussions, and one assignment (group assignment).  This course is carried out through an online course introduction and four days of face-to-face workshops.

 The activities of the course will be carried out as follows.

1-      Preparatory activities to implement group assignment 1. The assignment includes collaborative (group) work during which the group of the students critically review the published literature and case studies of the following topics, related to resources in wastewater. The students will bring the knowledge back to their peers through a 45-minute presentation. Times for student presentations will be included in the schedule of the course. Topics include but are not limited to:

a.       Quantitative assessment of resource potential in wastewater streams

b.       Advanced membrane technologies for water recovery (basic knowledge and case studies)

c.       Microbial fuel cells and electrolyzes for wastewater treatment and hydrogen production (technology, scaling up, potential, and challenges)

d.       Energy recovery and efficiency in wastewater treatment plants (case studies from Sweden)

e.       Institutional forces, Regulation, global initiatives driving resource utilization and their impacts on the Swedish wastewater sector.

f.        Challenges in Scaling Resource Recovery (Swedish perspective)

g.       Integration of recovery technologies in existing systems (global view and Swedish case studies)

Deadline for the submitting the assignment is 13th May 2025. Dates for presentations will be posted in the schedule.

2-      Four days of face-to-face workshops at Uppsala University. During the workshops, the students will participate in a set of scheduled lectures (in-person), peer discussions, student presentations, and social activities.

Examination

Participation in the course meetings online and in class, engaging in actively in peer discussions, and preparation and presentation of the group assignments.

Course Teacher(s)

Sahar Dalahmeh (UU/KTH)

Annika Nordin SLU

Gunnar Larsson SLU

Inga Herrmann LTU

Yahay Jani MDU

Sebastian Schwede MDU

David Gustavsson Sweden Water Research

Eveliina Repo LUT/ Finland

Isaac Owusu-Agyeman KTH