Research Interests

Primary focus on environmental engineering, in particular, physical/chemical and biological treatment processes for industrial, agricultural, and municipal liquid and solid wastes.

Recent research has emphasized on high-rate anaerobic waste treatment process development and valuable byproduct (ie. energy byproducts: methane, hydrogen; nutrients: P, K, N) recovery from waste streams.
. Biological Hydrogen fermentation from wastewater,
. Temperature-Phased Anaerobic Digestion (TPAD) of biosolids, municipal refuse and livestock wastes
. Demonstration of Anaerobic Sequencing Batch Reactor (ASBR) process for swine waste and
industrial wastewater,
. Biological sulfide conversion to elemental sulfur,
. Bioleaching for heavy metal removal study, and
. Sodium and ammonia inhibition study in thermophilic anaerobic digestion.
. Anaerobic membrane process

Biological Nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) Removal (BNR)
. Upgrade, retrofit and design BNR plants
. Regulatory compliance through reliable and consistent biological removal of nitrogen and phosphorus, without chemical addition
. Flexible design to accommodate variations in organic and nutrient loading
. Beneficial use of nutrient-rich sludge
. Process optimization of existing facilities
. Modeling the BNR plants