Environmental Technology Plant, FHNW School of Life Sciences

Wastewater from urban areas and industry contains environmentally harmful substances that are removed in stages in sewage treatment plants. However, current industrial processes cannot always, or can only partially, meet the rising quality requirements.

In the PTC's Environmental Technology Plant, purification processes can be developed and studied on a small scale and optimised for industrial use in large plants. A dedicated pilot treatment plant can process up to one cubic meter of wastewater from the Muttenz campus per hour, with mechanical pre-cleaning, chemical precipitation and biological treatment. Experiments for enhanced nutrient elimination and additional treatment of industrial wastewater can be performed in two membrane bioreactors operated in parallel mode (MBRs).

The plant is specialized in the removal of micropollutants such as drug residues and other chemicals. To this end, a range of oxidative, nanofiltration and adsorption-based processes are available after the purification stages. Thanks to the different membrane processes, the removal of bacteria and other pathogens can also be investigated.

A fully automated sludge treatment plant is used for studies on phosphorus recovery and on the anaerobic degradability of industrial wastewater and sludge. The plant will therefore continue to ensure wastewater treatment in compliance with future guidelines, with recovery of valuable substances and minimum resource consumption, even for material flows with unusually high loads.

With the on-campus environmental process engineering plant, students learn how modern wastewater management functions and can operate the plant and the control system themselves. It has a modular design, enabling highly flexible development and testing of new process steps. The plant can also treat external wastewater in different configurations; industrial and research partners can thus analyse the influences of adapted process parameters and develop new, environmentally, efficiently, friendly processes.

Flyer - Environmental Technology Plant (PDF)