On the evening of Tuesday 9 April, our second talk of 2019 took place at St. Johns International School with Raf Dewil who is Professor at the Process and Environmental Technology Lab (PETLab) at KU Leuven. PETLab is a research group within the Chemical Engineering Department at KU Leuven based at the Campus de Nayer site north of Mechelen. The title of Raf's talk was 'Advanced oxidation processes: from the lab to a Chemical Plant-on-a-Truck' and dealt with the various methods to treat on-site hazardous water generated by various industrial and chemical processes.
Over the past ten years, the PETLab group has established a broad expertise in resource recovery and the production of renewable chemicals and energy carriers from waste, side and biomass streams and it specialises in waste- and wastewater treatment processes, mixed-culture microbial processes, chemicals from low-cost feedstocks, and model-based optimisation of processes.
Within their facilities at the KU Leuven Campus de Nayer, PETLab combines a broad range of analytical equipment with extensive lab- and pilot-equipment. With numerous industrial collaborations, PETLab aims at combining fundamental knowledge with a hands-on philosophy to tackle real-life problems that industry is confronted with.
Raf's talk focused on a range of oxidation methods for the degradation of organics from hazardous wastewater streams and how laboratory work is scaled up to full sized units including an innovative modular system that combines chemical and biological oxidation treatments.
Raf's talk ended with a video outlining the 'Plant on a Truck’ concept operating at Janssen Pharmaceutica’s chemical production site in Geel. that treats process waters from the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients in a cost-effective and sustainable way.
Prof Dewil is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Management and his main research interests span advanced biological and chemical wastewater treatment, advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP), sludge treatment and disposal, anaerobic digestion processes, and production of renewable chemicals from biomass and waste.
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