Wastewater treatment in space
Scientists from the University of Wolverhampton ran a workshop for school students to enthuse them about the weird and wonderful applications of wastewater treatment processes.
By Julia Zakharova
The wastewater treatment process varies greatly depending on the type of wastewater involved (domestic, industrial stormwater) and the final requirements. In some cases, wastewater must be recycled and reused, as no plausible or possible alternative exist. This is very relevant for 'space' conditions, when the astronauts are saying that 'today’s coffee is tomorrow’s coffee'.
We ran a one day workshop, consisting of two parts. The first part was devoted to raising the students’ understanding of the importance of the wastewater treatment process in general and the necessity of recycling water in such environments as 'space'. The second part of the workshop was focused on a practical task where the students had to run a purification installation which was able to treat wastewater created in 'space'. For this purpose a solution of artificial urine was created and heated so that water was evaporated from the waste.
We were very motivated to run this project, as it is important to inspire and raise the aspirations of 14–15 year old school students in connection with the important aspect of chemistry that wastewater treatment represents. In the long run, we hope that some of the school students will have been encouraged to choose chemistry as a subject for their future career.
The Outreach Fund helped us enormously. First of all, we are very grateful for the valuable comments which were made during the preparation of our application. We also received some valuable feedback related to the financial part of the project. We are very grateful to the Outreach Fund as this enabled us, on the day, to provide a great lunch for the students. More importantly, some chemical consumables were bought which enabled us to create purification installations.
It was a pleasure to see how excited the students were to be able to run and monitor the process of water purification, bearing in mind that the school does not have any lab facilities. The students were very active and responsive, which meant that they enjoyed the activities very much.
I would like to thank everyone who helped us with this event, in particular our Head of School Dr Paul Hampton and our subject lead, Dr Alaa Hamood, for their support not only on the day but also during the preparation. My special thanks go also to Dr Geri Kitley from the Royal Society of Chemistry for her willingness to make this project happen.
We would definitely like to continue with this idea in the future, as it has worked very well. We now have the consumables necessary for the practical work. We are hoping to attract more schools to give their students this fantastic opportunity to explore these aspects of chemistry as subject matter that is integral to water engineering, and in particular to wastewater treatment.