hands under a dripping tap
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What we do

Pressure is increasing on our limited water resources. With more people requiring clean water, effective solutions need to come from reusing water in the most efficient way.

The Centre for Water Advanced Technologies and Environmental Research (CWATER) is an internationally leading centre of excellence for the development of advanced technologies in water treatment.

The Centre benefits from world-leading expertise in the areas of desalination and membrane technologies for water treatment.

Expertise in water to overcome shortages

water drop

Operation of membranes

Our research looks at membranes as filtration devices.

Filtration is a mechanical or physical operation which is used for the separation of solids from fluids (liquids or gases) by interposing a medium to fluid flow through which the fluid can pass, but the solids (or at least part of the solids) in the fluid are retained.

Filtration

Filtration diagram

Our Facilities


CWATER's facilities include:

  • Atomic Force Microscope
  • Micromanipulator and Colloid Probe

Take a Virtual Tour of our facilities here at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Research areas

The work of CWATER is multi-disciplinary and encompasses a wide variety of topics.

Broadly speaking, our work fits into one of three categories:

  • Drinking water treatment: improved methods of potable water treatment, with a view to meeting tightening regulations at cheaper capital and operating costs.
  • Waste-water treatment: technologies for the efficient removal of environmentally harmful materials and thus reduced emissions per output of discharge.
  • Process-water treatment: methods for the treatment of process streams enabling the recycling of water and valuable chemical intermediates.

The following gives an overview of current and potential future research areas, by technological area: