Optimizing Biofiltration for Sustainable and Biostable Rainwater Treatment
Supervisor: Thi Huyen Duong
Partner: Scottish Water
School: Engineering
Description:
Rainwater harvesting has traditionally been associated with developing countries or drought-prone regions; however, it is not widely regarded as a reliable water source in the UK. In Scotland, despite having some of the wettest regions in the UK, future projections indicate potential water supply deficits despite high rainfall levels. Rainwater harvesting represents a promising nature-based solution to enhance water resilience. To be suitable for household use, harvested rainwater requires appropriate treatment processes. The aims of this project is to develop sustainable, low-cost, and low-energy drinking water solutions tailored for rural Scotland and beyond.
The research project will build a prototype point-of-entry drinking water biofilter to treat rainwater to drinking water standards. The project will use a temperature to optimise the biofilter operation and install and test a suite of downstream final polishing steps for the biofilter treated water to ensure microbial water quality. The most sustainable and cost-effective filter material was selected based on the results obtained from the lab-scale system for biofilter construction. Drinking water quality will be monitored using a suite of water quality assessment methods, including cell counting, organic carbon characterization of treated water, pathogen detection, and microbial community analysis of influent, effluent, and biofilter samples. Through this high science approach to low tech treatment, the project will optimise drinking water treatment from rainwater by biofiltration providing a sustainable alternative source of drinking water.
The student will gain hands-on experience operating two biofilter systems under controlled and ambient temperature conditions, conducting routine sampling of raw and treated rainwater, and analysing water quality to assess treatment performance. Laboratory experiments will further explore the biostability of treated rainwater, including microbial regrowth under different storage scenarios. Analytical work will include cell enumeration, total organic carbon, and assimilable organic carbon measurements. The outcomes of this project will contribute to advancing biofiltration research and aim to support knowledge transfer toward full-scale applications in rural areas of Scotland.
