Water Quality, Security and Environmental Engineering

We have expertise in a variety of water treatment technologies as well as energy recovery from waste. These include the use of anaerobic digestion for biogas generation from waste, mercury phyoremediation and microwave hydrothermal carbonisation.

We undertake research with partners in the U.K. and internationally, with a particular focus on developing nations. Recent research projects include:

• Royal Academy of Engineering, Engineering for Development Fellowship to develop improved waste management processes in developing countries – Dr Oluwasola Afolabi is investigating agri-food waste and the development of clean biofuels
• British Council Newton Fund research on community scale, decentralised anaerobic digestion for energy and resource recovery
• The British Council supported collaboration between Loughborough and the University of Bahrain: Technical Integration of Sustainable Energy and Water (TISEW)

• AFOLABI, O.O.D, SOHAIL, M. and CHENG, Y.-L. 2020. Optimisation and characterisation of hydrochar production from spent coffee grounds by hydrothermal carbonisation, Renewable Energy 147, pp. 1380-1391
• CHOOSANG, J., NUMNUAM, A., THAVARAUNGKUL, P., KANATHARANA, P. RADU, T., ULLAH, S. and RADU, A. 2018. Simultaneous detection of ammonium and nitrate in environmental samples using on ion-selective electrode and comparison with portable colorimetric assays, Sensors 18(10), Art. no. 3555.
• AFOLABI, O.O.D. and SOHAIL, M. 2017. Comparative evaluation of conventional and microwave hydrothermal carbonization of human biowaste for value recovery, Water Science and Technology 75(12), 2852-2863.