The treatment group is an experimentally oriented research group working in close cooperation with SINTEF with most of the projects targeting development of new treatment processes as well as optimization of treatment processes both for drinking water, industrial process water (for instance in aquaculture), municipal and industrial wastewater and sludge treatment.
The strong areas of research are removal of humic substances in drinking water and removal of nutrients in wastewater (phosphate by chemical precipitation and nitrogen by nitrification/denitrification in biofilm processes). In terms of unit processes, the group has strong competence in all the particle separation processes (coagulation, flocculation, flotation, granular media filtration and membrane filtration). Currently the focus activity is membrane filtration, a unit process that probably will revolutionise the water and wastewater treatment sector during the next decades. On the applied research side, the group has put a lot of emphasis on biofilm processes and has developed “the moving bed biofilm process” that is now commercialised and become very popular in practice all over the world
In the area of water hygiene the research has been focused on rapid techniques for detection of bacteria in contaminated water aiming at development of rapid techniques for determining bacterial water quality and disinfection efficiency, and for assessment of bacterial viability. Disinfection of water and wastewater is another research activity, and the group works both with traditional (ozone, UV) and new (e.g. membrane technology) disinfection processes for removal of microorganisms (virus, bacteria, protozoa) from water.
