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INTRODUCTION

BY JULES VAN LIER

At 7.30 the alarm clock went off, and the day started with a fresh cup of coffee. Another day working from home in our second waive lockdown.. Laptop is activated and mails are dropping in.. Exactly one week ago, the 73rd edition of our world famous (in the Netherlands) Vakantiecursus would have been held if times were ‘normal’. But what is ‘normal’? I guess that after working 9 months from home, home working is ‘normal’.. The same is true for our many meetings, which are now all held online using TEAMS, Skype for Business, Zoom, Google, or any other platform. People are adaptive, a real asset which was also very useful in the past million years of human history. January 2021, Driving 1-2 hours for a (project)meeting of an hour and then going back is absolutely not ‘normal’.. What an irresponsible behavior and what a waste of time..; not to mention, the many foreign travels for international meetings, workshops, PhD defenses, projects visits, and conferences. Everything seemed so ‘normal’, that we forgot and ignored the negative consequences of our traveling: time loss from work, time loss from family, outrageous greenhouse gas emissions, stress, etc.. Let’s predict that our past year shock treatment will certainly contribute to more conscious decision making regarding all those travels that simply can be replaced by online meetings. Sure, physical get togethers, direct contact and a joint drink are invaluable and we certainly look forward to a joint next event such as the 73rd Vakantiecursus of 2022..! But in the meantime, we learnt that many travels can be avoided and replaced by far more sustainable digital alternatives. Similar to every working floor, we managed to proceed with our tasks and duties, having practically all our education on line and our research done under restricted Covid conditions. The pandemic forced us to accelerate our digitalization process and we certainly will increase our online education package, which in fact we started to develop 5-10 years ago.

Jules van Lier

VIDI GRANT NWO

DORIS VAN HALEM

Air as driving force for drinking water treatment

PROMOTIONS


DANIEL		IRENE CALTRAN
Factors influencing the household water treatment adoption in rural areas in developing countries.		Ion exchange (IEX) with anion resin can be used to remove natural organic matter (NOM) from drinking water sources.

NEW COLLEAGUES


DHRUV MEHTA		KIM MAREN LOMPE
My name is Dhruv Mehta; I was born and raised in India. I obtained a bachelor’s degree in biosciences and bioengineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.		My name is Kim Maren Lompe and I am starting a tenure track Assistant Professor position at TU Delft in September 2020.

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Fleur de Wit		Rogier Speksnijder
A Structured Decision Making method to explore value trade-offs when selecting Household Water Treatment and Storage technologies		Spatial and temporal relation between drinking water temperature and indicators for microbial water quality in the drinking water distribution system of Amsterdam
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CONFERENCES


GDW Webinar		ICUD2020
From Pakistan to Mozambique and from Sweden to Bangladesh, over 100 participants joined the Access to Drinking Water Webinar: Co-creation in Africa #SDG6 on 26 November 2020. The various backgrounds of the participants confirmed that online events can have great benefits as well.		The ICUD2020 (International Conference Urban Drainage) should have taken place last year in Melbourne, but due to COVID-19 it is postponed to 2021. In order to keep up the spirit the JCUD (Joint Committee on Urban Drainage) organized three webinars last December.

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PROJECTS


Graduation Project Tewaii Laman		ZERO BRINE
A small red car is driving in reverse, while a TU Delft master student is leaning out of the passenger window. “Left, right, more left. You got this, cuz!” As pot-holes and puddles are avoided, trees with giant thorns are scraping off the car’s varnish. Water equipment, boots and a giant hedge cutter tumble around on the back seat as the car maneuvers sharp turns.		ZERO BRINE project coordinated by TU Delft and granted under European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, is an innovative circular economy approach to reduce industrial saline wastewater streams by recovering and reusing the minerals and water from the brine generated in process industries, thus ‘closing the loop’ and improving the environmental impacts of production.


Onno Kramer
Due to Corona, students of several universities couldn’t work in the lab. So, on request I developed a virtual lab where students could learn hydraulic insights in multiphase flow encountered in drinking water treatment plants.

SEALINK project

We know that coral reefs worldwide are in decline, but remarkably little is known about how exactly this happens. That is why a multidisciplinary team of Dutch and Caribbean researchers, including TU Delft’s Boris van Breukelen, will investigate this in the coming years. The project ‘SEALINK’ was recently awarded 3, 5 million euros of funding as part of NWO's Caribbean Research programme. For the first time, Dutch and Caribbean scientists are looking at how the coral reefs are affected by pollution such as sewage water and chemicals that flow from land into the sea. The team will focus on Curaçao and St. Eustatius. Little is known on how exactly pollutants reach the sea from these islands, how subsequently water motion and marine organisms move and change these substances, and the overall impact that land based pollution has on the coral reef ecosystem. This knowledge is crucial for the preservation of coral reefs and biodiversity as well as for tourism and local communities in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Boris van Breukelen

DEPARTMENT AFFAIRS


MERLE DE KREUK NWO WOTRO STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER
Prof. Merle de Kreuk has been announced as the newest member of the NWO-WOTRO steering committee, representing the Engineering and Applied Sciences. She has been appointed for a first term of three years.
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Lecturing during Covid-19
It is a hard time for our (young) students. They miss the student life and the interaction with their fellow students. We are all longing for life classes and (lab) exercises. In the mean time we do our best to continue lecturing as good as possible. What helps is that much of our material was already online, wrapped-up in so-called MOOCs and ProfEds.
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MARC VAN EEKEREN REISFONDS

Het Marc van Eekeren reisfonds geeft financiële ondersteuning aan TU Delft Bachelor studenten die in het buitenland onderzoek willen gaan uitvoeren naar Stedelijke Watercyclus gerelateerde vraagstukken: watersystemen, drinkwaterproductie en -transport en afvalwaterzuivering- en transport.

Finished projects ›

Soesja Brunink, Costa Rica at TEC

PD ENG

A CO2 condensate produced at the Yara Sluiskil plant, represents circa half of the total nitrogen-load currently discharged by the plant to the local wastewater treatment plant. For the disposal of this reject stream, the company pays an annual fee to the local municipality. On top of that, expected stricter environmental regulations are encouraging Yara to find solutions to reduce the plant’s nitrogen footprint.

Since 2016, TU Delft research team have been developing an innovative system able to remove and recover the ammonium from industrial waste streams. In 2018, this concept was successfully tested on the Yara Sluiskil condensate. Therefore, Yara chose to sponsor a PDEng project at TU Delft with the scope of assessing the potential and the feasibility of this innovative system for the disposal of the CO2 condensate and simultaneous recovery of valuable compounds contained in this stream. Ir. G.L. Bandinu was selected as PDEng trainee for this project which officially started on the 15th February 2019.