AquaNES, FHNW School of Life Sciences

AquaNES catalysed innovations in water and wastewater treatment processes and management through improved combinations of natural and engineered components.

The FHNW School of Life Sciences coordinated this project, in which 30 partners collaborated. We also operated a demonstration site together with IWB, the local drinking-water utility of Basel. We investigated the feasibility of an advanced oxidation pre-treatment of surface water before it is infiltrated into the natural aquifer at the Lange Erlen site.

The project focused on 13 demonstration sites in Europe, India and Israel covering a representative range of regional, climatic, and hydro geological conditions.

Among the demonstrated solutions are natural treatment processes such as bank filtration (BF), managed aquifer recharge (MAR) and constructed wetlands (CW) plus engineered pre- and post-treatment options.

AquaNES's objectives were:

• to demonstrate the benefits of post-treatment options such as membranes, activated carbon and ozonation after bank filtration for the production of safe drinking water
• to validate the treatment and storage capacity of soil-aquifer systems in combination with oxidative pre-treatments
• to demonstrate the combination of constructed wetlands with different technical post- or pre-treatment options (ozone or bioreactor systems) as a wastewater treatment option
• to evidence reductions in operating costs and energy consumption