Dr Tanja Radu

Summary of expertise 

• Energy from waste
• Wastewater treatment
• Renewable energy
• Biogas for rural communities, small scale anaerobic digestion
• Soil and water pollution
• Water and sanitation for developing countries
• Inter-disciplinary research that addresses the water-energy-food security nexus

Current research activity 

• 2019 Algae-based biomethane fuel purification and carbon sequestration: an integrated approach, Supergen/EPSRC, £99 000
• 2017-2019 Technical Integration of Sustainable Energy and Water (TISEW), British Council, £400 000

Recently completed research projects 

• 2016-2018 Community scale, decentralised anaerobic digestion for energy and resource recovery, British Council Newton Fund Institutional Links grant, £250 000.
• 2018 PhytoPower: Safely transforming mercury phytoremediation crops into bioenergy, Supergen/EPSRC, £25 000.
• 2015 Remote autonomous monitoring of Anaerobic Digestion, Supergen/EPSRC, £20 000.

• J. Choosang, A. Numnuam, P.Thavarungkul, P. Kanatharana, T. Radu, S. Ullah, and A. Radu. (2018) Simultaneous Detection of Ammonium and Nitrate in Environmental Samples Using on Ion-Selective Electrode and Comparison with Portable Colorimetric Assays, Sensors, 18(10), 3555 
• T. Radu, R. Blanchard, V. Smedley, Towards decentralized biogas generation: building community scale biogas reactors,40th WEDC International Conference, Loughborough, UK, 24 Jul 2017 - 28 Jul 2017
• T. Radu, R. Blanchard, and A. Wheatley (2017) Biogas for sustainable rural communities: Case studies, in Moving to Cleaner Energy in a Resource-Rich Country: The Case of Kazakhstan, edited by Yelena Kalyuzhnova and Richard Pomfret, 189-208, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, Oxford, UK.
• T. Radu, R. Blanchard, V. Smedley, H. Theaker, and A. Wheatley, (2014) Anaerobic Digestion of Brewery Effluent- 2 Year Operating Experiences and Key Effects on Performance, Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science, 9 (4), 207 – 213.

Undergraduate

• CVC021 Environmental Engineering (Module leader)
• CVC023 Civil Engineering for Developing Countries

Postgraduate

• CVP411 Water and the Natural Environment (Module leader)
• CVP401 Assessing Water Quality and Quantity (Module leader)
• CVP406 Appropriate Sewerage and Sewage Treatment
• WSD536, WSP036 Biomass 1

Career 

I am a Lecturer in Water Engineering, with more than 15 years of international experience in water and environmental engineering. My main research interests include waste water treatment, renewable energy from waste and supplying energy for rural communities in developing countries. Currently, I am focusing on the process of biogas generation from waste using the technology of anaerobic digestion. I am involved in a range of international projects providing small-scale, decentralized sustainable energy generation. This includes international research projects (please see below). In addition, I have broad experience in studying heavy metal transport phenomena. For example, I am involved in research of mercury phytoremediation and removal, and its effect on the biological systems.  My research collaborators include academics and industries from the UK, Thailand, India, Bahrain, and across Europe.

Academic and professional history

06/2018-present Lecturer in Water Engineering, School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, Loughborough University

06/2017-06/2018 Lecturer of International Relief, Water Supply and Sanitation Engineering, WEDC, Loughborough University

05/2012-6/2017 Research Associate, School of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University

07/2006- 06/2010 Postdoctoral Fellow, Project Manager, National Centre for Sensor Research, Dublin City University, Ireland

05/2001 – 2007 Research Assistant, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

Professional affiliations

• FHEA

Key collaborators

My research and enterprise activities are conducted with a range of academic and stakeholder partners, including:

• Terra Power Ltd.
• Severn Trent Water
• University of Bahrain, Bahrain
• Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand
• Kazakh National Research Technical University, Kazakhstan