A new S$120 million research centre at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will harness the powers of micro-organisms for environmental and water sustainability.
The Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), will look at innovative ways to process waste water efficiently and trap greenhouse gases.
The centre is led and hosted by NTU, in partnership with the National University of Singapore (NUS).
NTU said environmental engineering solutions are critical to solve the main challenges facing mankind, such as a sustainable environment and the availability of clean water.
At the same time it can bring significant economic benefits for Singapore and beyond.
It said in Asia alone, the water market is expected to grow to S$600 billion by 2015.
The centre has already embarked on two flagship programmes in partnership with PUB, Singapore’s national water agency.
The first involves the Ulu Pandan wastewater reclamation plant, where SCELSE has started a comprehensive analysis of the complex microbial communities that treat water at the plant.
By knowing exactly what all of those organisms do and how they function together, the reclamation process can be optimised to be faster, more efficient and to use less energy.
The second is to study urban waterways, in which SCELSE has adopted the Ulu Pandan Catchment Areas to study the role of microbial processes in the recycling of surface water and for controlling harmful microorganisms.
The findings will be useful for reshaping of waterways by the combination of hard and soft engineering approaches.
