Water Regeneration
Description and lines of research
The Water Regeneration unit focuses on the study of solar photocatalysis for the decontamination of toxic waters, as well as the removal of micropollutants and the disinfection of treated water for reuse (regeneration). It hosts the Water Regeneration Technologies Research Platform, with full-scale demonstrators.
Strategic lines
- Application of solar photo-Fenton for the decontamination of toxic waters, removal of micropollutants in treated waters, and disinfection of treated waters (regeneration)
- Water regeneration through photo-Fenton. Assisted by UV LED radiation and concentrated solar radiation
- Combination of solar photo-Fenton with membrane biological reactors (pre-and post-treatment)
- Optimization and control of the operation and development of new technologies for photo-Fenton
- Economics of water treatment processes.
Principal investigators
ORCID: 0000-0003-2142-9175 · Scopus Author ID: 58622341800. Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from the University of Almería (1998) and PhD in Chemistry from the same university (2004), recognised with the Extraordinary PhD Award (2004). Full Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Almería since 2022. Director of the Solar Energy Research Centre (CIESOL) since 2022 and member, since its foundation, of the research group "Bioprocess Engineering and Water Technologies (BIO-263)" affiliated with the centre. Since 2022, he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Aqualia Chair on the Integrated Water Cycle. In 2007 he was a visiting researcher under the José Castillejo Programme at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath (United Kingdom). He has participated in 27 research projects funded through regional, national, and European competitive calls, mainly focused on water treatment technologies, serving as principal investigator in eight of them (three European, two national, and three regional). He has also participated in 14 research contracts with companies, coordinating five of them. Since 2006, he has supervised seven PhD theses in areas including filamentous fungi biotechnology (2), the application of CFD to solar oven design (1), and solar photo-Fenton processes for water treatment (4). According to Web of Science, he has published 90 papers, which have received 2,860 citations (h-index: 31). In Scopus, he has 86 publications with 3,203 citations (h-index: 33).
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9893-6207 · Scopus Author ID: 8415190600. Isabel Oller leads the Solar Water Treatment Unit at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (CIEMAT). She earned a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Granada (2002) and a PhD from the University of Almería (2008). She has more than 18 years of experience in the decontamination and regeneration of industrial and urban wastewater using advanced oxidation processes, their combination with physicochemical pretreatments, and advanced biological treatments. She has worked on these activities through national and European R&D projects (5th, 6th and 7th EU Framework Programmes, H2020 and Horizon Europe). Her scientific output includes four books published by national publishers, 18 chapters published by international publishers, 165 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and more than 180 contributions to international conferences and symposia (as of April 2023). She has also taught national and international courses on advanced wastewater treatment. H-index (April 2023): 46.