The advanced Treatment of Water and Wastewater with Ultrasound

Ultrasound in environmental technology: the advanced treatment of water and wastewater is one of the key issues in both countries of Romania and Korea. The conventional oxidation processes based on the biological and chemical oxidation power are not good enough to treat the nonbiodegradable minor trace organics or strong wastes .

Necessity of the project: recently trace toxic compounds including petroleum products, solvents, endocrine disruptors, etc. in water system threaten human health in all over the world. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) using ultrasound has emerged as a promising technology for the removal of these pollutants. Ultrasound also has been considered for the treatment of sludge, groundwater treatment, and soil washing and so on.

The coordinators: the coordinators of this project in both countries have research experiences in this topic. They have carried out research projects for years in their countries and published the results to the professional journals. Also, they recognize the importance of bilateral international corporation. They will use chance to deepen and extend their understanding of this area and to strengthen the networking of professional groups of both countries. In addition, the students who are to be involved in this project already have experience in this topic and will be important human resources for international networking and technical excellence.

Justification: There are not many researchers specialized in ultrasound applications for water and wastewater treatments around the world. Recently, however, it is demonstrated that ultrasound applications are effective in degradations of trace toxic compounds, and can produce great synergetic effects when applied with other AOPs by many foreign research groups. Therefore, it is necessary to collaborate with the foreign research team for the development of domestic ultrasound technology.

Implementation plan and timetable: the two research groups will convene together regulary and the meeting will be held twice a year, once at each country, for two years. During the visiting each country, they will have workshops, look around the related industry, and participate domestic conferences if possible. At the workshops, we will introduce each research group's achievements, decide what we will research together in AOPs with ultrasound, check the progress of each team's research, and make plans for publishing international papers and presentations in the international conferences.