Conference Program

Nitrogen-cycling microorganisms play essential roles in nutrient removal and resource recovery in wastewater and sludge. Recently, I published a Review article in Nature Water, focusing on the trajectory of the discoveries of novel nitrogen-cycling microorganisms and summarising the technological progress enabled by them thus far.

We found that many researchers and industry pioneers are indeed very interested in these new nitrogen-cycling microorganisms, but with different focuses and expertise. This workshop will provide a dedicated platform to bring these communities together, fostering mutual understanding and integration of knowledge.

Through keynote presentations, case studies, panel discussions, and interactive breakout sessions, we will explore how fundamental microbial discoveries can be translated into robust engineering applications. Ultimately, it seeks to catalyze new collaborations, ensuring the continued partnership between scientists and engineers to redefine wastewater management towards greater sustainability and resilience.

Urban areas worldwide face increasing water scarcity driven by population growth, climate change, and aging infrastructure. This workshop explores how decentralised water reuse can complement centralised systems to enhance water resilience.

Decentralised approaches are vital where central networks are vulnerable to droughts, flooding, or failure, allowing water to be recycled near the point of use while reducing dependence on distant sources. There are increasing case studies from South Africa, the USA, Europe, and Asia that highlight growing shifts toward household and community-level solutions as cities confront recurring shortages.

However, decentralisation also raises challenges around public health, regulation, and utility revenue and sustainability. The workshop will examine how decentralised and centralised systems can be integrated, understand barriers, explore technical and financial enablers, and build participants’ capacity to consider, scale, and manage decentralised reuse systems that support sustainable and equitable urban water futures.

The workshop introduces participants to practical nutrient-removal modelling by bridging textbook theory with real-world plant behaviour. Using SUMO24, attendees learn how influent characteristics, sludge production, aeration demand, and reactor configuration influence activated sludge and nitrogen removal performance.

Through hands-on simulations, the session demonstrates how factors such as SRT, diffuser performance, alpha factors, and influent fractionation shape ammonia removal, oxygen requirements, and overall process efficiency.

Participants progressively build a simple CSTR, convert it to a plug-flow system, and upgrade it to an MLE process to evaluate nitrate recycle optimization and oxygen savings through denitrification. By the end, attendees gain clear, actionable skills for analyzing plant data, diagnosing operational issues, and making informed process-control decisions.

Nitrogen management in wastewater treatment remains predominantly linear and energy intensive, with a continued reliance on costly removal processes that ultimately return nitrogen to the atmosphere.

This workshop aims to chart a coordinated research and policy agenda toward a circular nitrogen bioeconomy by clarifying the drivers, opportunities, and limits of nitrogen recovery relative to both incumbent nitrification-denitrification and emerging low-carbon nitrogen-removal technologies.

Through expert presentations, a panel discussion, and structured breakout groups, participants will examine the technology landscape for nitrogen recovery, evaluate optimal feedstreams and product pathways, identify technical, policy, and regulatory barriers, and define criteria to compare nitrogen recovery and removal approaches.

The workshop will produce a synthesized agenda for priority research, demonstration, and policy needs, along with a perspective article articulating challenges and opportunities for advancing a circular nitrogen bioeconomy.

This interactive workshop explores how nitrous oxide mitigation in wastewater treatment can be enhanced through microbial insights gained from high-throughput molecular methods, including metagenomics, metaproteomics, and their combination with isotope analysis.

Designed to bridge academic research and utility practice, the session features three full-scale mitigation case studies from leading European utilities, paired with expert academic presentations that unpack the microbial mechanisms behind successful interventions.

Participants will engage in facilitated discussions and small group activities to explore how molecular tools can validate plant-specific hypotheses and inform process design and operation. The workshop highlights the value of utility-academic collaboration in translating microbial knowledge into process optimization.

Attendees will gain a practical understanding of “omics” technologies, their application in real-world settings, and their potential to advance nitrous oxide mitigation strategies. This session is tailored for professionals seeking to integrate current microbial science into operational decision-making.

This workshop examines the morphological continuum between conventional activated sludge, densified activated sludge, and aerobic granular sludge, challenging traditional binary classifications in wastewater treatment.

The session explores the “Goldilocks Zone”: optimal conditions where biomass achieves superior settling characteristics without requiring complete granulation. Participants will investigate physical, biological, and operational parameters influencing floc densification and granule formation, including hydrodynamic shear forces, feast-famine cycling, selector configurations, and microbial community dynamics.

Discussion topics include characterization techniques for assessing floc morphology and size distribution, settling velocity measurements, the role of extracellular polymeric substances in biomass structure, oxygen transfer, and practical strategies for achieving stable densified sludge.

The workshop bridges fundamental research with engineering applications, addressing implications for treatment plant design, footprint reduction, and energy optimization. By revisiting boundaries between sludge morphologies, attendees will gain actionable insights for leveraging intermediate biomass forms to enhance biological treatment performance in municipal wastewater facilities.