The Australian Research Council Linkage Program is funding $US4.8 million toward the initiative, which is the largest Australian Research Council grant for water industry research.
Sydney Water Managing Director Kevin Young said that accelerated corrosion has major impacts on concrete sewerage systems throughout Australia, resulting in large costs for mitigation and significant capital outlays for rehabilitation, repair and odour management.
“Research provides a complete picture of sewer corrosion and odour-related processes as well as providing us with a broad suite of options and support tools to manage corrosion. We will also be able to better address community concerns about odour,” Mr Young added.
The project is designed to carry out research in all aspects of the corrosion process and emissions of odour.
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The benefits to Sydney Water will include:
- Improved prevention of corrosion and reduced chemical costs
- Lower rehabilitation costs and improved targeting of remediation works
- Better specifications and application procedures for coatings
- Better sited ventilation points
- A web based knowledge management system
Sydney Water’s contribution to this project is approximately $US1.02 million in cash and $US1.83 million in-kind. The remaining cash and in kind funding is from industry partners and the universities.
Research partners include Sydney University for research into concrete coatings, University of New South Wales for odour research, CH2MHILL consultants for ventilation research and Newcastle University for research into concrete corrosion. Queensland University have been appointed to administer the funding and to co-ordinate the research projects. This is in addition to their own research component of innovation in modelling, chemical dosing/control and preventative methods.
The industry partners participating in this project include Sydney Water, Gold Coast Water, Western Australia Water Corporation, South Australia Water, Melbourne Water, South East Water, Barwon Water, Hunter Water, United Water, Water Quality Research Australia and CH2MHill. The research partners include University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, University of Newcastle, University of Sydney, and Curtin University.
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