The BioEngine laboratory in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Université Laval includes high-end equipment and pilots for resource recovery from waste materials and polluted water. It includes methanogenic potential reactors (BMP), semi-continuous biomethanization reactors in 1, 2 or 3 phases, composting and controlled aerobic conditioning reactors, a fluidized bed granulator, a pilot for phosphorus recovery by adsorption, a nitrogen recovery set-up by stripping and absorption, a membrane bioreactor, a measurement station for real-time monitoring of physicochemical and biological parameters, as well as equipment for characterizing water and residual organic matter.
Nine stations that can be installed in a river, sewer or stormwater system or in a wastewater treatment plant. They include a metal enclosure, with a computer with software for monitoring and data processing (connected to the Internet), and sensors of different brands (pH, conductivity, turbidity, UV-Vis spectrometer, ammonium and nitrate, dissolved oxygen), and various control or maintenance elements (heat control, electric valve for air cleaning, etc.). The processing of data quality and storage of data in an organized database to also contain metadata (data on data) are important features of this development by the Canada Research Chair in Quality Modeling. water, which was marketed by the company Primodal (RSM-30).
L’équipe bénéficie d’un laboratoire d’analyse comprenant les appareils suivants : Absorption atomique, Analyseur de carbone, Analyseurs de chlore en continu, Analyseurs de UV en continu, Analyseurs d’azote ammoniacal en continu, Analyseurs de turbidité en continu, Analyseur de particules, Chromatographe ionique, Chromatographes gazeux à détection à capture d’électron (GC-ECD), Chromatographe en phase gazeuse avec spectromètre de masse (GC-MS), Chromatographe en phase gazeuse avec spectromètre de masse en tandem (GC-MS-MS), Chromatographe en phase liquide ultraperformance (UPLC), Équipements pour la microbiologie moléculaire, Spectrophotomètre UV, Titrateur automatique, Identificateur de colonies, Cycleurs thermiques, Robot pour la préparation d’échantillons d’eau. L’équipe opère également divers montages expérimentaux et possède différents logiciels de simulation.
The team benefits from an analytical laboratory with the following equipment: Atomic absorption, Carbon analyzer, Continuous chlorine analyzers, Continuous UV analyzers, Continuous ammonia nitrogen analyzers, Continuous turbidity analyzers, Particle analyzer, Ion chromatograph, Electron capture gas chromatographs (GC-ECD), Gas chromatograph with mass spectrometer (GC-MS), Gas chromatograph with tandem mass spectrometer (GC-MS-MS), Ultra performance liquid chromatograph (UPLC), Molecular microbiology equipment, UV spectrophotometer, Automatic titrator, Colony identifier, Thermal cyclers, Water sample preparation robot. The team also operates various experimental setups and has different simulation software.
The pilot is continuously fed by a student housing of about 480 people and two daycare centres of about 90 people each. From the sewer system, the wastewater is pumped to a buffer tank with a volume of 5 m3 and subsequently pumped to a primary settling tank for a pre-treatment. The flow is then split into 2 (pilot and co-pilot): 0.5 m3/h are sent to the pilot and 0.5 m3/h are sent to the co-pilot. These two biological treatment lines are composed of two anoxic basins equipped with mechanical agitators and three aerated tanks by disk diffusers. Each pilot section is followed by a secondary settling tank. Both lines contain sludge recirculation and internal recirculation with a heat exchanger to control temperature between 10 and 25oC. Traditional and innovative measurement systems are connected to a state-of-the-art industrial process control system with ample actuators and options for different operation and control scenarios. The pilot was put into service in January 2015. The pilot is part of the Laboratory on the Sustainable Development of Public Infrastructure.
The water and environment laboratory has all the necessary equipment to perform physicochemical and (micro) biological analyzes of environmental samples (drinking water, river and lake water, wastewater, soils and sediments), sub-analyzes -products of drinking water disinfection and bacteriological analysis of drinking water.
Equipment:
- Atomic absorption
- Carbon analyzer (COT)
- Continuous chlorine analyzers
- Continuous UV / Screw Analyzers
- Continuous ammonia, nitrite and nitrate analyzers
- Continuous Chlorophyll Analyzers - Continuous Phosphate Analyzers
- Continuous turbidity analyzers
- Particle size analyzers
- Fall velocity distribution analyzers (ViCAs, elutriation system)
- Ion and gaseous chromatograph (GC-ECD, GC-MS, GC-MS-MS)
- Thermal cyclers
- BOD equipment, BMP
- Equipment for molecular microbiology
- Lipid extraction equipment
- Microscope
- Colon Identifier
- Respirometers
- Automatic titrator
