The Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology is an international centre of excellence in innovative water technology and management. With over 20 years of research in this field, the ACWEB has developed leading expertise in research, consulting and education. Its particular strength is the close integration of biological science, process engineering and informatics. This unique combination forms the basis for ground-breaking research but also offers some exciting opportunities for development and application of user-specific solutions to challenging environmental problems. The ACWEB research portfolio consists of six research themes that are achieving sustainable outcomes for the water industry, protecting our water resources and critical infrastructure. The shift towards a true urban water cycle, both at local and regional scale, poses numerous challenges and opportunities for the water industry as a whole.

Website

https://acweb.uq.edu.au/

Organisation type

• University Research Centre

Number of research staff

20-100 research staff

Address

Level 4, Gehrmann Building (60), The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072

Strengths and capabilities

• Greenhouse gas research
• Bioelectrochemical systems
• Microbial electrosynthesis
• Sewer corrosion and odour management
• Metabolic engineering of microbes
• Understanding and mitigation of methane and nitrous oxide emissions
• Strategies for sustainable purified recycled water

Facilities and major equipment

• Physical Containment Class 2 (PC2) Laboratory
• Analytical Services Laboratory
• Environmental Microbiology Laboratory

Lead researchers

• Professor Zhiguo Yuan AM—Fellow of the Australian Academy and listed as one of Engineers Australia’s Top 100 Most Influential Engineers 2015
• Professor Jurg Keller—An Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow with more than 140 international conference publications
• Professor Damien Batstone—Chair of the IWA Anaerobic Digestion Specialist Group, 135 international journal articles and 200+ international conference publications.

Achievements of the centre

• AWMC research has been commercialised into three businesses Cloevis, Bilexys and Lodomat, all which have large impacts on the water industry
• Professor Yuan received the 2015 (ATSE) Clunies Ross Award for his innovative technologies
• Sewer Corrosion and Odour: Putting Science in Sewers project received the 2014 Global Project Innovation Award (Applied Research).

Key science sectors

More information about the sectors this centre is involved in:

• Biotechnology
• Energy
• Engineering
• Environment and nature
• Food and agriculture