Postdoc in microbial biotechnology - wastewater treatment

If you are interested in using concepts and tools in microbial ecology to understand and improve wastewater treatment, this post-doc project may well be for you. Here, you will examine microbial community interactions to develop a novel process combination, partial denitratation-anammox, for nitrogen removal from municipal wastewater.

Project description
Anammox-based processes permit energy efficient nitrogen removal without using organic matter, which instead can be used for e.g. biogas production. Treatment of the mainstream of municipal wastewater with anammox is so far not widely applied due to process instability. However, a recently highlighted combination of partial denitratation-anammox (PDA) seems highly promising. Detailed studies of PDA at realistic combinations are hence warranted.

In this project, you will investigate PDA with emphasis on improving our understanding of the composition and function of the microbial community members resulting in turnover of nitrogen. The research will be conducted in both pilot-scale, at a municipal wastewater treatment plant for realistic conditions, and in lab-scale for studies at well-defined conditions. You will investigate how operational- and environmental factors affect the microbial communities to develop PDA control strategies, examine critical factors in manipulative studies, and assess the real gains with PDA for municipal wastewater treatment plants.

The project will be carried out at the division Water Environment Technology (WET), at the department of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
As a Post-doc, you will be part of the environmental biotechnology and wastewater engineering research group. Together with researchers at the University of Gothenburg, (dept. of Chemistry and Molecular Biology), we form the Bioresource Labs. We conduct research on biotechnologies for more efficient treatment and resource recovery from waste streams spanning from microbial ecology theory to process engineering. We develop new biotechnological processes and we investigate the fundamental science behind these processes. Examples of ongoing projects include anammox, microbial electrochemistry, aerobic granular sludge, and moving bed biofilm processes. Often, our projects are carried out in cooperation with municipalities, R&D companies, and consultancies. In this project, the pilot plant will be operated by VA SYD (a municipal water and wastewater organisation) in cooperation with an industrial PhD student. Other parties involved are Sweden Water Research (a municipal R&D company) and AnoxKaldnes (a consulting company).

Major responsibilities
The position is a 2 years full-time temporary employment. Besides research, there are possibilities to include some teaching.
The research project is divided into two main parts:

1) The pilot-scale studies. Here, you will sample and analyse the microbial community from the moving bed biofilm reactors to understand how the composition and function of the biofilm community members change over time. Based on your findings, together with operational and environmental reactor data (provided from the wastewater treatment plant), the project will provide input on how to operate PDA reactors at realistic conditions.

2) The lab-scale studies. Here, you will yourself operate and analyse a set-up of small biofilm reactors for manipulative studies of the PDA microbial community and its functions, where critical factors such as reproducibility and stability are be assessed.

In the later stages of the project, you will also use your own data together with other datasets to evaluate the implementation of PDA at municipal wastewater treatment plants.

Our offer to you
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the dynamic city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Application procedure
To apply, please go to: https://www.chalmers.se/en/about-chalmers/Working-at-Chalmers/Vacancies/Pages/default.aspx?rmpage=job&rmjob=9405

Application deadline: 15 May, 2021