DATE/TIME: Monday, April 10, 2023, 12:00 pm
Renzun Zhao
North Carolina A&T State University
Tackling Urban Water Quality Challenges: A Path to Environmental Sustainability, Resilience, and Justice
Urban environmental infrastructure includes a range of facilities such as water and wastewater treatment plants, stormwater management systems, solid waste management systems, and air quality monitoring and management systems. Municipal solid waste landfills and wastewater treatment plants are two critical components of this infrastructure and share a unique material cycling process through landfill leachate and sewage biosolids. One example is co-treatment of landfill leachate with municipal wastewater in public owned treatment works (POTWs) due to its low cost and convenience. However, organic contaminants present in landfill leachate pose tremendous water quality challenges, such as UV quenching substances (UVQS) that interferes with UV disinfection, and Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS). This seminar aims to provide an overview of the landfill leachate organic contaminants, including UVQS identification and treatment, examination of elevated temperature landfills (ETLF) and sustainable remediation of PFAS. The seminar will also address firsthand experiences on advancing diversity and engaging environmental justice.
Seminar Host:
AJ Both