Archive News

September 8, 2020Process Engineer Adriano Joss from Eawag water research institute has been working for many years on wastewater treatment plants and the removal of micropollutants from water. Together with Ralf Kägi, Head of the Eawag Particle Laboratory, he has compiled the current status of knowledge on microplastics. In an interview, he presents the most important findings. We have recently posted detailed information on the website “Microplastics in the environment”.

August 28, 2020Nature Sustainability has just published a review article on possible risks that COVID-19 viruses could cause in wastewater. Prof Eberhard Morgenroth (Head of the Eawag Department of Process Engineering) is a co-author of the review. We asked him five questions.

July 20, 2020In addition to ozonation, filters using granulated activated carbon (GAC) are increasingly being deployed to eliminate trace substances from municipal wastewater. Working in conjunction with authorities and representatives from the field, Eawag has developed a document that will assist stakeholders with planning in relation to such measures.

June 10, 2020Thanks to a new instrument, water pollutants can be measured automatically over a period of weeks – directly in the field, rather than in the laboratory. The mobile mass spectrometer is housed in a trailer and can be remotely controlled by smartphone.

May 11, 2020How can water supply and wastewater disposal be provided flexibly and efficiently, especially in rapidly growing cities? A new research agenda formulates open questions from a technical, social and transformative perspective. It stresses the importance of transdisciplinary cooperation between research, policy and practice to promote innovation in the water sector.

April 30, 2020The novel coronavirus has been successfully detected in wastewater – even at low concentrations, in samples collected at an early stage of the outbreak. Researchers at EPFL and Eawag are now working to optimise the method. The aim is to develop a system which could warn of a resurgence of cases earlier than clinical diagnostic tests.

April 28, 2020The active ingredient diclofenac contained in various painkillers is hardly degraded at all in wastewater treatment plants and therefore accumulates in surface waters. There, amphipods convert diclofenac into a more toxic substance, namely diclofenac methyl ester, as shown in a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag).

April 3, 2020 Researchers want to make use of the fact that coronaviruses excreted by infected individuals can be found in wastewater. If the viruses can be detected successfully, this may provide a much faster way of spotting a wave of infections than via testing of symptomatic individuals. To find out more, we interviewed Eawag researcher Christoph Ort.

March 31, 2020Using a simple but ingenious strategy, a research team has successfully demonstrated how water quality downstream of wastewater treatment plants is influenced by a single pharmaceutical manufacturing site: as variations in the concentrations of compounds over time are dependent on production cycles, it is possible to distinguish between industrial and household emissions – even a long way downstream.

March 24, 2020Contaminated waste water often flows into rivers and streams after heavy rains. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thus also enter the waters. Eawag is researching exactly which ones and in what amounts as part of a national research programme.