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WEF President-Elect Keith Hobson with team members Tess Insalaco, Caroline McClung, Bonnie Brudie, Joaquin Garfias, and Grace Lee.

Designing wastewater treatment of the future

A team of University of Colorado Boulder environmental engineering undergraduates has earned national accolades for a wastewater treatment project.

The group of five students took third place at the in New Orleans last month with their senior capstone project to overhaul how a Denver-area utility, manages wastewater treatment.

“They serve 19 districts, including Littleton,” said team member Bonnie Brudie (EnvEngr’24). “They’re a forward-looking wastewater treatment plant, and their solids-handling treatment process is nearing the end of its life. They wanted a student team to evaluate their current system and propose improvements as if the whole system were being redone from scratch.”

All environmental engineering students complete a senior design capstone that challenges them to apply the skills they have learned over the course of their degree to a real-world problem. Many projects work with an outside business or government sponsor, like South Platte Renew.

The team, which also included Joaquin Garfias, Tess Insalaco, Grace Lee and Caroline McClung, spent a semester creating a conceptual design for a pyrolysis and biodrying system. It would utilize high temperatures in excess of 500 °C in an oxygen-free environment to turn solid waste into biochar, which eliminates most contaminants and per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFA) substances.

“It’s a new technology, but could revolutionize biosolid treatment in the USA,” Brudie said. “Pyrolysis turns solid waste into Class A Exceptional Quality under EPA rules, which is basically unregulated. You can do whatever you want with it.”

Before settling on pyrolysis, the team completed preliminary design work on the idea and conducted a thorough review of alternatives through a multi-criteria decision matrix that considered feasibility, cost, and regulatory compliance.

“The problem statement from SPR was extensive. They were great to work with, and they took our work seriously. They’re very interested in seeing what the possibilities will be. I don’t think they’ll jump on this right away, but if you’re looking out into the future, there is real potential,” Brudie said.

The proposal earned more than just positive feedback from SPR. The team also presented it to the earlier this spring, where they won first place, earning them a trip to the national WEF conference. There, they received third in the wastewater division.

“I wasn’t expecting to place at a national competition,” Brudie said. “We really put our best foot forward, and they liked our organization and our presentation style. We represented the great work students are doing at ���������� Boulder and the instruction we received.”

Brudie emphasized the entire team was critical to their success.

“Having people that are all working together for a similar end goal is so important. It was absolutely a team effort of the student members, faculty, our advisors, our principal, and technical advisor. Everyone showed up consistently and put energy into the project to make this happen,” Brudie said.