Join us for #EnvBiotechAware Week, 3-7 March 2025 to celebrate the work of our membership and take a closer look at our activities and achievements from the last few years.
Lunchtime Webinar
Current and future directions in Aerobic Granular Sludge systems, Monday, 3 March 2025 1-2 pm (UK)
The webinar will include two presentations, the first covering technical developments for Nereda, experience of meeting current industry needs, and new developments regarding harvesting of biopolymers from granules; the second on Algal-bacterial granular sludge (ABGS) in biological wastewater treatment processes.
Speakers: Paul Lavender CSci CEnv FCIWEM. Director – Water Utilities UK, Water & Maritime, HaskoningDHV UK Ltd, a company of Royal HaskoningDHV; Associate Professor Xiaoyuan Zhang, Nankai University. Chair: Dr Yongqiang Liu, University of Southampton. Find the Teams link HERE and the flyer here.
Featured Working Groups
What have our Working Groups been up to? Ably led by academics whose enthusiasm translates into action, see how EBNet support has benefited these communities. Today’s featured groups are:
• Aerobic Granulation Processes
• Bioinformatics Training for Microbial Environmental Biotechnologies
• Environmental Biotechnology and Social Sciences
The activities of these and all our working groups can be found here.
“I am an Environmental Biotechnologist because….”
Our Early Career Researchers span a plethora of fields, technologies, universities and topics. But they all work within EB. We asked them to respond to: ‘I am an Environmental Biotechnologist because…‘ – a deceptively simple question! See responses from today’s featured ECRs:
• Sergio Serrano Blanco, Newcastle University, Xiang Shi, University of Glasgow and Laura Martin, University of Oxford
• Okelani Aworabhi, Cranfield University, Alice Banks, Imperial College and Himani Taneja, Canterbury Christchurch University
• Ayisha Affo Souleymane, Cranfield University.
Impact
Amongst the papers and projects, workshops and webinars, many tangible outputs have surfaced to help guide the wider Environmental Biotechnology community. Today, we feature our:
Exploring Environmental Biotechnology as a Field report, with the Executive Summary here. Brought to you by the Environmental Biotechnology and Social Sciences Working Group, this study set out to explore the past, present and future of environmental biotechnology as a field. Drawing on documentary evidence, bibliometric analysis, interviews and a workshop, it provides an initial mapping of definitions and clusters within the field, and presents tentative conclusions regarding its future directions.
EBNet Poster: Granules vs. Flocs: Decoding Seasonal Retention of Functional Bacteria in Aerobic Sludge
Outreach
We’ve commissioned books, animations and more – all available for the wider community to be used beyond the lifetime of our Network. Take a few moments to watch, download and share today’s animations:
Selected Case Studies
- Meeting the nutrient neutrality challenge using newly developed biological technology. Dr Yonqiang Liu, University of Southampton and Plantwork Systems Ltd (BIV202004)
- Determination of microbial communities of laboratory anaerobic digestion tanks and impact of the CreChar additive on the microbial community dynamics. Prof James Chong, University of York and Carbogenics (BIV202001)
- Faecal pollution source tracking & quantitative microbial risk assessment methods for a suitcase laboratory. Prof David Werner, Newcastle University (POC202101)
- Real time monitoring of anaerobic digestion microbial communities as a foaming risk prediction method. Dr Dana Ofiteru, Newcastle University (POC202112)
 | Filamentous bacteria in Activated Sludge |  | Bacteriovorous ciliates. Colonial vorticellids cf Carchesium |
| Images kindly provided by Prof Francisco Torrella of the University of Murcia Faculty of Biology, one of our valued group of international expert advisers | |||