Research

Environmental Engineers at Murdoch University undertake research in the following

areas:

 Water systems:
o Water auditing, conservation and efficiency method
o Wastewater treatment and recycling
o Desalination techniques
 Resource recovery:
o Solid waste auditing, minimisation and collection
o Organic waste reprocessing
o Anaerobic digestion
o Building waste recycling
 Pollution mitigation:
o Air pollution control and quality management
o Gas emissions, odour control, mitigation of greenhouse emissions
o Soil improvement and pollution control
o Bioremediation, soil organics and fertilisers
 Food production systems:
o Aquaculture and aquaponics
o Water, nutrient, carbon cycling for productive soils
o Organic agriculture
o Permaculture systems
 Built environment:
o Thermal performance of buildings
o CFD modelling
o Climate sensible design
o Sustainable materials
 Low carbon energy systems:
o Building integrated energy systems
o Anaerobic digestion
o Carbon neutral settlements and livelihoods

Research Students
Current PhD student & Research Topics:

 Ayaz Rabbani
Odour Control for Wastewater Treatment
 Ben Cole
Sanitation Marketing in Developing Countries
 Beth Strang
Decentralised Urban Water Recycling - Governance for Urban Systems
  David Goodfield
Carbon Neutral Minesite Villages
 Francious Vorster
Health Risk Assistant of Recycled Sewage for Industrial Application
 Joanne Stewart
Sustainable Livelihoods from Carbon in Indigenous Communities
 John Hunt
Urban Water Balance Model
 John Xie
Polysaccharide Membrane Fouling
 Josh Byrne
Sustainable Urban Landscapes - Mains Water Neutral Model
 Leslie Westerlund
Papermaking Technology Transfer in Developing Countries
 Maedeh Pakzad Shahabi
Sustainable Water Supply System for Urban Areas
 Mario Schmack
Water Distillation from Novel Condenser Plate
 Raphael Flavigny
Wastewater Treatment by Biofilm
 Robbie Cocks
Minesite Water Auditing and Computer Modeling
 Sebastian Eckstaedt
Odour Controlling in Aerobic Composting System
 Suwat Suwannappadol
Rapid Start up of Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion
 Veena Nagaraja
Microorganism Causing Desalination Membrane Fouling
 Xian Lou
Small Scale Anaerobic Digestion

These research students and the staff have contributed to positive outcomes on a range of
projects related to environmental engineering.