News

Hi-Water project presentation

On 12th December Linda Mezule presented the activities of Hi-Water project at 8th meeting of the Nordic/Baltic Network for Water and Health.

Best paper award!

Water Research laboratory team (Researcher Sandis Dejus and Profesor Talis Juhna) made research and wrote a paper “Detection of drinking water contamination with Mahalanobis distance method, using on-line monitoring sensors and manual measurement data” – which has been chosen as the inaugural Water Supply best Paper for 2018! This also will be announced in Volume 19, Issue 8 of Water Supply via an Editorial. Congratulations!

The super-food spirulin, grown by RTU scientists, is coming to the market

Water research laboratory senior researcher Kristīne Veģere is a part of the team who transformed idea of cultivating the valuable tropical spirulina in cool climates into a ready-to-market product. More about this read here.

BEST project meeting in Kaliningrad

Presentation at the Health inspectorate of Latvia

At the beginning of November, WRL staff made several presentations at the Health Inspectorate, 7 Klijanu Street, where the audience was hygienists. Talis Juhna talked for more than an hour about drinking water treatment technologies for the removal of iron, manganese and ammonium. Sandis Dejus presented her dissertation research on online monitoring of drinking water quality and the U-Vitamins initiative. Janis Rubulis, for his part, gave a detailed account of the risk analysis conducted by Madonas Udens Ltd in the context of Water Safety Plans.

11th Eastern European Young Water Professionals Conference in Prague

International Conference on Wastewater Treatment Technologies and Management Systems (ICWTTMS 2019)

Our laboratory Postdoctoral Senior Researcher Basanti Ekka presented her work entitled “Dairy Wastewater treatment by Electrochemical and Catalytic methods” and participated in the International Conference on Wastewater Treatment Technologies and Management Systems (ICWTTMS 2019) organized by World Academy of Science, Engineering, and Technology in Zurich, Switzerland during September 16-17, 2019. The ICWTTMS 2019 brought together the leading academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to exchange and shared their experiences and research results on all aspects of Wastewater Treatment Technologies and Management Systems. It also provided a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Wastewater Treatment Technologies and Management Systems.

Partners meeting during ERDF 1.1.1.1. measure 2nd round project

From May 2019 Water Research laboratory in cooperation with LLC “Bio RE” executes ERDF 1.1.1.1. measure “Support for applied research” 2nd round project “Zero-to-low-waste technology for simultaneous production of liquid biofuel and biogas from biomass”.

Project aims to develop and enhance biological technologies for biomass processing, design a system for efficient recovery of produced fermentable sugars, work on enhancement of anaerobic digestion by introducing technologies that allow to process fats and oils. Furthermore, re-use of overall wastes will be evaluated.

Project kick-off meeting on 3rd May 2019 gathered representatives from both scientific and administrative personnel in both partners.

On 26th August second partner meeting was organised. Scientific achievements were presented from both teams. Water Research laboratory researchers presented latest achievements in collection of fungal enzymes. New protocol for production is under development. Moreover, first practical and theoretical tests for sugar recovery system have been carried out. LLC “Bio RE” presented the results about freezing/thawing technology of digestate and first results about potentially valuable flocculants for waste processing technology design.

iWatermap project stakeholders meeting

On 18 of June representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia in cooperation with RTU Water research laboratory members organized iWatermap stakeholders meeting.

The meeting was moderated by Dāvids Štēbelis and stakeholders was introduced with iWatermap project, e.g., project vision, and results. The second part of the meeting was dedicated to the development of Critical Mass Development, Human Capital and Internationalization Roadmap for the water sector in Latvia.

In the meeting was invited representatives from Triple helix, e.g., Latvia water and wastewater works association, The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre, University of Latvia (several research institutes), Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava”.

Biosystems Engineering conference in Tartu

From 2019 May 8-10 Kristina Tihomirova, Linda Mežule, Viktorija Deņisova, and Ksenija Golovko participated in the Biosystems Engineering conference organized by Estonian University of Life Sciences. The goal of BSE 2019 was to stimulate collaboration in various fields of biosystems engineering, to foster an environment conducive to exchanging ideas and information. This conference provides a great environment to develop new collaborations and meet experts on the fundamentals, applications, and products of the mentioned fields. Conference participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with our latest research developed under:

1) the INTERREG the Baltic Sea region international cooperation programme BEST (Better Efficiency for Industrial Sewage Treatment, #R054) during the cooperation with landfill management company the Llc ZAOO and Landfill Daibe  “Management of wastewater from landfill of inorganic fiberglass” from K. Tihomirova, V. Denisova, K. Golovko, O. Kirilina–Gutmane, L. Mezule, T. Juhna.

2) INNO-INDIGO IPP3 project B-LIQ “Development of an Integrated Process for Conversion of Biomass to Affordable Liquid Biofuel” B-LIQ from L. Mezule, I. Berzina and M. Strods – “The impact of substrate-enzyme proportion for efficient hydrolysis of hay”

Our team had an opportunity to visit the wastewater treatment plant and cooling station in Tartu.

More information about the conference here.