Published: 31 October 2012 UQ research leads to smarter sewage
management Scientists from UQ's Advanced Water Management Centre
have found a way to curb the cost – and smell – of sewage
transportation. Professor Zhiguo Yuan said bad smells were only
one cost of transporting sewage. “Bad pipes caused by hydrogen
sulfide corrosion are another more noxious side-effect that
costs the Australian water industry around $100 million a year,”
Professor Yuan said. “Our plan is to change all that by applying
to the pipes a once-a-week dose of environmentally friendly free
nitrous acid (FNA). “This will be good for both the environment
and our senses.” Currently, expensive chemicals are used to deal
with the inevitable smells and corrosion caused by unwanted
biofilms that grow on the surfaces of wastewater infrastructure.
Apart from the cost of the chemicals, the existing “solutions”
create further problems in the sewage treatment and reclaiming
process, as it becomes yet another chemical to be neutralised.
“Our challeng