Philipp Kehrein

Name:

Philipp Kehrein

Nationality:

German

Project ID:

ESR14

Understanding environmental, economic and social sustainability for recovery of products from waste water

Short CV / biography:

As an environmental management and environmental science student I discovered early, that the complexity of the water cycle fascinates me. In addition, I developed a great interest in circular economy related topics and started to explore resource recovery for value creation from organic waste streams. Doing research on wastewater related concepts that promote the recovery of energy, materials and products is the perfect symbiosis of these two exciting topics.

Short description of my topic:

Urbanization, as a major and continuing megatrend implies that large quantities of wastewater are generated in cities and accumulate a variety of different substances. The PhD project aims for supporting the design and development of more sustainable wastewater management strategies that are based on a resource recovery perspective. Conventional and innovative wastewater treatment technologies can promote value creation and contribute to sustainable development if wastewater derived products can become re-integrated into existing material and energy flows. In this context, a strategical framework that provides guidance to exploit the resource recovery potential of existing urban wastewater systems is needed. In addition, bottlenecks for the implementation of innovative wastewater resource recovery pathways shall be revealed like e.g. economic constraints or social acceptance barriers for recoverable products.

My progress / state of the art :

At the current point in time, a review is in progress that gives an overview about existing and innovative wastewater resource recovery technologies in order to depict the theoretical potential associated to the topic. Secondly, factors that may hinder or promote the implementation of certain recovery pathways shall be identified and critically discussed within the review.