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News, November 2011

A seminar “Phytotechnology as a method of cleaning industrial water from oily waste” was held in Samara Technical State University (SamGTU).

On November 23, 2011, at SamGTU, a seminar “Phytotechnology as a method of cleaning industrial water from oily waste” was organized as a follow-up of the Responsible Water Resources Management for Sustainable Development Program that is being carried out by the Alcoa Foundation and the Fund for Sustainable Development (FSD), Moscow.

After an introductory presentation by Alina Kopnina, assistant professor at the Chemical Technology and Ecology Department of Sam GTU, devoted to the main issue of the discussion – water treatment – Elena Maksina, fifth-year student of the same department, spoke about water treatment methods. She had conducted experiments on cleaning water from oily waste with the use of myriad-leaf and had found that this plant was the most suitable one to be used in laboratory conditions and that it was also the most unpretentious. Water treatment with myriad-leaf is quite effective: in 24 hours water becomes 50% cleaner.

The students actively discussed Elena’s presentation and asked her about the methods of additional water treatment. She described the method of additional water treatment with the use of bioplateau and additional cleaning through filters. Alina Kopnina suggested to conduct a more thorough study of the biomass that forms after water is cleaned with myriad-leaf.

Olga Zavodskaya, postgraduate student at the Chemical Technology and Ecology Department, delivered a paper on the research she was conducting and supplemented the presentation of Elena Maksina with information on the possibility of using models replacing myriad-leaf. She found that after 2 hours of a model’s work its efficiency dropped, while the cleaning capacity of myriad-leaf continued to grow.  That time was also enough for myriad-leaf to extract iron ions from water. Her experiments have also shown that myriad-leaf is ineffective against hardness salts and copper ions and, thus, the students and professionals in the field will continue with their research to reduce hardness and study biomass formed by myriad-leaf.

The seminar was attended by 14 students of the Chemical Technology and Ecology Department of SamGTU.

 

Photo:

1. Presentation of Elena Maksina
2. Seminar participants
3. Presentation of Olga Zavodskaya
4. During the discussion