Annual Archive

On Monday November 18th our university welcomed students of international study program ATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses Environmental Technology and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications.

More information on school website.

The Department of Water Technology and Environmental Engineering, UCT Prague, is looking for junior researchers that will take part in exciting new grant projects.

• Researcher/PhD student for a project to develop methods for highly sensitive and rapid detection of fecal pollution and antibiotic resistance
• Researcher /PhD student for the PFAA point source load identification project
• Researcher/PhD student for the project on the early detection of sources of avian influenza

We expect the candidates to also enroll into open Ph.D. student program Chemie a technologie ochrany životního prostředí (Czech or English). Beginning of employment ideally since June 2024, enrollment into the PhD study program on 1st of September 2024. Please apply to jan.bartacek@vscht.cz or vojtech.kouba@vscht.cz

Please provide:

• motivation letter,
• detailed CV and
• contact information of at least two references.

Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis.

On Monday, November 20th our university welcomed students of the international study program ATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses in Environmental Technology, and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications.

More information on our CTU university website.

On October 19, employees and former students of our department took part in an excursion to the wastewater treatment plant in Vienna, which is designed for 4 million EOs and occupies an area of 460,000 m². The excursion was organized by the expert group Sludge and Waste CzWA, and out of the total number of 22 participants, 16 were graduates from our department (4 of them are current employees).

The history of wastewater disposal in Vienna dates back to 100 AD when Roman soldiers built the first network of canals. The sewage system dealt with the discharge of wastewater into waterways until the Second World War. In December 1951, the first wastewater treatment plant was put into operation, which served until 1980, when the foundation stone of the main Vienna treatment plant was laid. This was intensified in the following decades, in 2005 a device for more effective removal of nutrients was launched here and a second stage of biological purification was built. On April 13, 2015, the foundation stone of the E_OS – Energie_Optimierung Sludge Treatment project was laid. It was launched on June 4, 2020, and since then the treatment plant has been completely energy-self-sufficient. Its operation requires approximately 64 GWh annually, which represents 1% of the electricity consumption of the whole of Vienna. Six new anaerobic digesters, each with a capacity of 12,500 m3, produce biogas, which is the source of the annual production of 78 GWh of electricity and 82 GWh of thermal energy.

We would like to thank DI Dr. Gerald Wandle.

"Veolia Summer school was a great experience, which I would definitely recommend to any student who is interested in deepening their knowledge and skills. During that week, I got to know smart students, with whom we are still in contact after the project. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it."

This year, there were 60 students, from 26 countries and 59 universities. And 25 speakers and 13 experts from Veolia. During those 5 days, the students met many of our colleagues, discovered inspiring career paths, discussed with fellow students from all around the world, and worked on our business cases, in order to better understand ecological transformation and its challenges. 

The linked short video will give you an insight of what it has been done and what your students have accomplished. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThOONC1BCpw 

On Wednesday, May 27, Vojtech Kouba successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis "Nitrogen removal from anaerobic pre-treated urban wastewater using modern biological processes". Vojta measured his thesis under the supervision of Jan Bartacek. 

It was a first partially on-linePh.D. defense. 

Congratulations!!!

On Monday November 14th our university welcomed students of international study program ATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses Environmental Technology http://tvp.vscht.cz/department/people/19018/24726 and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications http://uprt.vscht.cz/prochazka/pedag/ATHENSe.htm.

More information on: http://intranet.cvut.cz/incomers/athens

The second part of the 1^st IWA Digital Water Congress was opened by IWA Executive Director Kala Vairavamoorthy. The IWA President Tom Mollenkopf announced two new IWA Honorary Members.

Mark Van Loosdrecht from TU Delft and Prof. Jiří Wanner from our department.

Congratulations!!!

On Thursday, June 25, Petr Dolejs successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis "Enhancing energy recovery from municipal wastewater using bioflocculation or anaerobic membrane bioreactor". Petr measured his thesis under the supervision of Jan Bartacek.

Congratulations!!!

UCT Prague published a new book in our field "Measurement and control of chemical, food and biotechnological processes". One chapter of the book (22.17 Controlling the Process of Municipal Wastewater Biological Treatment on a Laboratory and Industrial Scale) was written by two members of our department prof. Jiří Wanner and assoc. prof. Jan Bartacek.

On 25 - 26 November 2019, Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Krampe, the Head of the Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management at the Technical University of Vienna visited our University. This visit followed many years of very good contacts between our workplaces, which is dated back to 1987 when prof. Wanner visited the Vienna Department just at the time when its founder prof. Willi von der Emde handed over to prof. Helmut Kroiss, who headed the department until 2012. Professor Krois visited Prague several times, for the first time in 1991, when our University organized the IWA conference on Large wastewater treatment plants. On the other hand, many members of our University, including Ph.D. students, have visited the Vienna Department at various times.
Prof. Krampe visited our University in April 2015 in connection with the meeting of the Preparatory Committee of the IWA Conference on Large WWTPs in September 2015 in Prague. This year's visit was opened by prof. Krampe on Monday, November 25, by acquainting himself with the history, specialization and study programs of prof. Wanner. This was followed by a tour of the most interesting laboratories of the University, from the new "modeling room" to the laboratories of hydrobiology and technical microbiology.
On Monday, November 25, the first workshop was held where prof. Krampe introduced the working groups of the Viennese workplace, their research projects, and their main results. These research areas include, inter alia, river basin and lake protection, rainwater pollution, innovative approaches to nitrogen and phosphorus removal and phosphorus recycling, anaerobic processes and sludge treatment, micro-pollutants and antibiotic resistance, as well as other interesting areas.
On Tuesday 26 November morning prof. Krampe lecture on "Energy Efficiency in Wastewater Treatment", attended by many members of institutes and students of all degrees of study. The topic of the lecture attracted many people outside the Institute of Chemical Technology, so we managed to fill the large auditorium BII. The lecture was followed by an interesting discussion, which then continued for those interested in the Institute at the afternoon workshop where the Institute presented its most interesting research projects and where the possibility of further cooperation of both research institutes was discussed.
Wednesday, November 27, was devoted to a tour of the New Water Treatment Plant CWWTP Prague, which in addition to prof. Krampe and prof. Wanner was also attended by the PhD students. At the end of his stay in Prague prof. Krampe greatly appreciated the friendly reception he received at the Institute as well as the scale and high level of research projects. Prof. Krampe left Prague with the conviction that his visit opened another chapter in the mutual relations of both workplaces. The Vienna Department also offers a number of interesting opportunities for our doctoral students' apartments in Vienna.

On Monday November 18th our university welcomed students of international study program ATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses Environmental Technology http://tvp.vscht.cz/department/people/19018/24726 and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications http://uprt.vscht.cz/prochazka/pedag/ATHENSe.htm.

More information on: http://intranet.cvut.cz/incomers/athens

11th Eastern European Young Professionals Conference

On October 1 - 5, the 11th International IWA Eastern European Young Water Professionals Conference was held in Prague. In addition to several universities, the conference was also held under the patronage of SOVAK ČR and CzWA.

The conference program started with the Water Utility 2030 workshop led by MSc. Hasenleithner, CEO of Energie AG Bohemia, who was one of the conference sponsors. Furthermore, Utility Benchmarking and How to present workshops and excursions to Central WWTP in Prague was held before the main program of the conference.

Participants of the conference met on 2 October at an informal party, where the conference participants were welcomed by the chairman of the program committee prof. Ing. Dr. Wanner, DrSc. Ing. Maryna Feierabend, Vice-Rector of UCT Prague prof. Dr. RNDr. Matějka and representatives of YWP CZ Ing. Petra Vachová and Ing. Filip Harciník. The opening ceremony took place on the morning of 3 October in the large hall of the CTU Congress Center in Masaryk Dormitory, and in addition to the above-mentioned, the chairman of the CzWA Committee, doc. Ing. David Stransky, Ph.D. and representatives of sponsoring companies.

The conference was attended by nearly 200 participants (195) not only from Eastern Europe, as the conference title might seem. In addition to Europeans, there were also representatives from Australia, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa or India. The main program of the conference was divided into two parallel sections within two days - drinking water and wastewater. Many interesting lectures were heard, including Czech and Slovak representation. 58 posters were also presented, the authors of which had the possibility of a quick, three-minute presentation.

At the conference, the best lecture from each section and the best poster were selected by program committee representatives. There was also a Czech and Slovak representation - the award for the best lecture in the Drinking Water section was received by Ing. Ronald Zakhar from STU Bratislava with a lecture Comparison of Different Adsorption Materials for Pentavalent Arsenic Removal from Drinking Water and Award for Best Poster Ing. Vojtěch Kouba from UCT Prague with poster Pilot-scale experiences with partial nitritation treatment anaerobically pre-treated sewage. The winners will be able to attend the next annual conference, which will be held in the capital of Latvia, Riga, free of charge.

The last day of the conference included an excursion to the Podolí Water Treatment Plant and a tour of the Prague center. The social program of the conference consisted of a gala dinner during a cruise on the Vltava River and the second evening the participants had the opportunity to dine in the restaurant of the Strahov Monastery.

The conference was also the culmination of the activities of the Czech chapter YWP so far when the official registration of the Czech chapter YWP in the International Water Association IWA was announced during the conference.

On Monday, November 26, prof. Wanner and Dr. Bartáčková went to an excursion with IMETE and ERASMUS students to wastewater treatment plant Plzeň and brewery Prazdroj.

On November 21-23, the meeting of project REEF 2W took place at our department. REEF 2W is an Interreg Central Europe project about "Increased renewable energy and energy efficiency by integrating, combining and empowering urban wastewater and organic waste management systems". All partners were discussing mainly the project progress, financial report and reporting the first training course. They were also developing 5 regional REEF 2W strategies in the five concerned regions.

On Monday, November 19th our university welcomed students of international study program ATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses Environmental Technology http://tvp.vscht.cz/department/people/19018/24726 and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications http://uprt.vscht.cz/prochazka/pedag/ATHENSe.htm.

More information on http://intranet.cvut.cz/incomers/athens

On November 12-16, workshop SuPER-W on business case development took place at National Technical Library in Prague. Fifteen students from 5 European universities (UCT Prague, TUDelft, Ghent University, UPC Barcelona and RWTH Aachen) were presenting their Ph.D. progress as well as solving the case studies on business case development. 

More information about SuPER-W can be found on SuPER-W webpage.

Martina Roeselová Foundation aims to encourage life scientists to balance out competitive scientific work with good quality care of pre-school children.

To this end, the Foundation awards a financial contribution – the Martina Roeselová Memorial Fellowship – to selected scientists to commemorate Martina Roeselová whose life embraced not only a short but excellent scientific career but also raising three children and active effort to improve professional environment conditions for young scientists–parents.

More information can be found on the official website.

The REEF2W project aims at developing and implementing solutions for increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy production in public infrastructures. This goal can be achieved by combining and integrating relevant public infrastructures of municipal solid waste chain with the wastewater treatment plants by upgrading their input mix and their energy outputs:

• through the enrichment of the upstream supply chain providing compatibility with a wider biomass mix from agriculture, agro-food, and public green biomasses
• by strengthening the integration and empowerment of internal processes for maximizing energy efficiency and renewable energy outputs (electricity, heat, biogas, bio-methane, bio-products) to be locally consumed at the WWTP or fed into public/private grids or used in the public mobility and waste collection trucks.

Five feasibility studies of different REEF 2W models will be realized on European wastewater treatment plants. The studies will show how the new REEF 2W approach could lead to an abatement of energy needs in many WWTPs and to a significant increase of renewable energy production.

REEF 2W is funded by the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme that encourages cooperation on shared challenges in central Europe. The Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development coordinates this three-year project with 11 partners from Central Europe: Croatia, Italy, Czechia, Austria and Germany.

In addition to other project activities, the UCT will take the lead in part of the project focusing on the analysis and assessment of case study sustainability and final validation.

More info: http://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/REEF-2W.html

Twitter: @ProjectREEF2W
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reef2w/

On Monday, September 4, a Joint Ph.D. defense took place at our department. Lucie Pokorná defended her Ph.D. thesis "Microaeration for biogas desulfurization – experimental and simulation study of various reactor types"  written under the supervision of prof. Pavel Jeníček and Assoc. Prof. Jan Bartáček (both UCT Prague, Department of Water Technology and Environmental Engineering) and prof. Eveline I.P. Volcke (Ghent University, Department of Biosystems Engineering) and obtained a Ph.D. degree.

Congratulations!!

On 13 - 17 June 2017, an international conference BioTech 2017 took place in the National Technical Library in Prague, together with the 7th Czech-Swiss Symposium. The conference was attended by 270 representatives from 37 countries all over the world. In the competition of 97 posters, a poster of  Zdeněk Varga (a PhD student from our department) was awarded by the Best Student Poster Award sponsored by a foundation of Zdenek and Michaela Bakala. The poster  was about Biomethane from biogas or waste carbon dioxide: Adaptation of hydrogenotrophic methanogens.

Congratulations!!

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Assoc. Prof. Jan Bartáček from the Department of Water Technology and Environment Engineering was a Keynote SPeaker at the 1st International Conference on Environmental Technology and Innovations held in November 23-5, 2016 at Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Doc.Bartáček presented a lecture "Sustainable Sewage Treatment for the 21st century".

On Monday November 14th our university welcomed students of international study programATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses Environmental Technologyhttp://tvp.vscht.cz/department/people/19018/24726 and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications http://uprt.vscht.cz/prochazka/pedag/ATHENSe.htm.

More informations on: http://intranet.cvut.cz/incomers/athens

On September 15, 2016 signed by the President of the IWA (International Water Association), Professor Helmut Kroiss Austrian certificate that certifies the election of Prof. Ing. Jiri Wanner, MD. from the Institute of Water and Environment, ICT Prague between the so-called. IWA Distinguished Fellows. IWA is the largest globally active organization dedicated to all aspects of water supply, waste water and purification and recycling. IWA focused individual, national and corporate members from the majority of countries on all continents. The president of the IWA certificate states that the election of Professor Wanner into this category of membership is a sign of recognition of exceptional achievements in the profession and to work for the association. Distinguished Fellows elected among one of the highest honors individual members. The relevant article of the Statutes states: "Distinguished Fellows are top water professionals recognized for their unique contributions to the progress of science and technology, water, water management and to support the mission and objectives of the IWA." Group of Distinguished Fellows also serve as consultants to the Board of Directors when important decisions about the future direction of the association. Professor Wanner is one of 30 Distinguished Fellows from around the world and the first in Central and Eastern Europe. Selecting the IWA Board of Directors was based on the recommendation of the committee IWA, chaired by Professor David Garman from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and Dr. Julian Sandino, vice-president of CH2M HILL from Kansas City, Missouri. Professor Wanner filed nomination Water Association of the Czech Republic (CzWA) nomination to further support the three existing Distinguished Fellows, namely Dr. James Barnard from USA, prof. Gustaf Olsson from Sweden and prof. Wilderer from Germany.

Professor Wanner began working in the IWA (then acting as IAWPRC) in 1986 as secretary of the Czechoslovak National Committee. Since 1994 represents the Czech Republic in the highest body of the association, called. Governing Assembly. In 1988 he founded a group of specialists to population dynamics of activated sludge, which led until 1997. The publications of that time developed the principles of population dynamics and pioneered new methods of identifying material activated sludge microorganisms using gene probes. In 1991 he became a member of the management of other specialist groups, namely the design, operation and economics of large wastewater treatment plants. He also served as a member of the preparatory committee of the conference of the group held at four-year intervals, the 1991, 2003 a2015 organized this conference in Prague. In the period 1999-2007 he was the secretary of the expert group and in the years 2003 - 2015 she led as its chairman. In 2013, co-chaired by Professor Jenkins California extraordinary conference of the IWA hundred years of the activation process took place in Essen. In recent years, Professor Wanner pays in addition to its wastewater treatment and reuse their issue as one possible answer to the ongoing drought.

For his work in the activation process, Professor Wanner received from the IWA and other awards, namely the price Ardern and Lockett (named after the inventors of the activation process) in r. 2009 and r. 2010 Award for outstanding services to the development of the field and IWA. In 2011, he promoted to the category of IWA Fellows.

In July there was a transfer of material so-called "Memorandum of Understanding" between the ICT Prague and TU Munich, which previously signed by rectors of the two universities. The handover took place in the premises of the department of "Urban Water Systems Engineering" in the new TU campus in Garching. Signing this memorandum is an important acknowledgment of the quality of our schools, TU Munich as one of the most prestigious universities not only in Germany but throughout Europe, and their partners are carefully selected. By the TU Munich in the enforcement of the memorandum deserved particular professor Joerg Drewes, head of the department.

https://www.professoren.tum.de/en/drewes-joerg/

This memorandum greatly facilitate cooperation between schools in all these areas:

• Exchange of postgraduate students (PhD students);
• Exchange of teachers / scientist for short term visit for cooperation;
• Development of joint research programs;
• Organization of the bilateral joint Symposiums, Seminars and conferences;
• Involvement of leading scientists from the Technical University of Munich as advisors in Prague UCT Research Centre;
• Funded Cooperation in international (EU) projects e.g Horizon 2020
• Mainly scientific cooperation in the field of Forensic analysis, Human Health and the
• Environment, Advanced Materials, Technology and Environment Aimed at Developing joint scientific publications in prestigious journals and / or joint patents.
   

Professor Drewes is also the chairman of the expert group of the International Water Association for the recycling of wastewater and will also act as a scientific consultant and supervisor of projects prepared in this area at UCT, either alone or in cooperation with Hl. m. Prague (Horizon 2020).

Professor Drewes will be even more this year, the official guest of UCT - FTOP, and on 22. 11. 2016 will deliver a lecture on the theme "Re-use of treated wastewater for non-drinking and drinking purposes in terms of the impact of climate change." Information and exact time and room where the lecture will be held, will be even more precise and timely notified.

On Monday November 16th our university welcomed students of international study program ATHENS. The Faculty of Environmental Technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering regularly offer courses Environmental Biotechnology http://web.vscht.cz/~benesp/athens.htm and Digital Signal and Image Processing with Applications http://uprt.vscht.cz/prochazka/pedag/ATHENSe.htm.

More informations on: http://intranet.cvut.cz/incomers/athens

The excursion of DWTEE took place in Jílové bear Děčín in September 10-12 this year. Department members visited wastewater treatment plants in Litoměřice and Teplice, the drinking water treatment plant in Meziboří, Fláje dam and the castle Jezeří.  Photos from the trip are in the gallery.

Students from The International Master of Science in Environmental Technology and Engineering (IMETE) successfully defended their master theses at UCT Prague. 

The International Master of Science in Environmental Technology and Engineering  programme is an International Erasmus Mundus programme. It trains people to apply and develop environmental technologies, offering a wide range of optional study fields in an international environment.