EI LIVE free webinar | Energy Recovery from Fatbergs

Branch event

06/07/2021

18:00 - 19:00 UK Time

Online

Free

Registration for this event has now closed. If you would still like to attend, please email: rgreenough@dmu.ac.uk 

Join the East Midlands branch for their free webinar on energy recovery.

The UK consumption of oil and fat is around 0.5 million tonnes per year, 283,000 tonnes of which are used for food production. Only around 6% of these materials are recycled for energy recovery whilst a high percentage (35%) are discharged in the sewers. Once in the sewers, the lipid contained in the wastewater solidify and saponify leading to the formation of hard deposits also known as 'fatbergs'.

The chemical composition and energy content of the discharged fat changes during its journey from the sink to the wastewater treatment plant. In this webinar Professor Raffaella Villa will present the potential of energy recovery from these materials at catchment level, using Thames Water catchment as a case study.

Raffaella graduated from University of Milan, where she also did her PhD in applied biological catalysis. Raffaella worked at Exeter University as a research associate, at Stirling University as a research fellow and at Cranfield University as academic staff before joining De Montfort.  Raffaella has researched on microbial bioengineering for the last 20 years. She has adapted her microbial and enzymatic expertise to the environmental sector, and delivered teaching and research in waste, wastewater and resource management (a priority theme for the UK and global sustainability agendas). In particular, she has worked on FOG and sewers fatbergs for the last 14 years and attracted research funding from the Government and from different water utilities to understand and help mitigating the problem of FOG deposits in sewers.