Stellenbosch University Water Institute
South Africa faces formidable and unprecedented challenges in meeting the rising demand for potable water. Their available supplies of fresh water are decreasing due to extended droughts, deteriorating water quality, more stringent health-based regulations, and competing demands from a variety of users. Moreover, increased pollution of groundwater and surface water from a wide variety of industrial, municipal and agricultural sources has seriously tainted water quality.
In response to these water challenges, the Stellenbosch University Water Institute was established in 2010 to collaborate with government and industry. This multidisciplinary research unites microbiologists, polymer scientists, engineers, earth scientists, biochemists, aquaculture specialists, biologists, soil scientists, etc, all towards one goal: to solve water related challenges, to provide technology transfer and to develop human resources.
Through a focus on water, issues such as health, effluent treatment, agriculture, food, a sustainable environment, nanotechnology and filtration are addressed. This includes topics such as biofouling and biocorrosion control, community health, financial-economic planning of water use, endocrine disruptors, hydrodynamics, water engineering, catchment and resource management, invasion biology, the geochemical evolution of water and waste waters, etc.
Innovation holds the key to the mitigation all of these problems, ranging from unsophisticated technologies to high-tech nanotechnology solutions. In this area, the Institute has recently patented a portable, easy-to-use and environment-friendly water filter bag (like a tea bag) filled with active carbon granules that remove harmful chemicals like endocrine disruptors. Each “tea bag” filter can clean the most polluted water to the point where it is 100% safe to drink. The sachet combines years of fundamental research on water purification, nanotechnology and food microbiology in a practical way.
Professor Eugene Cloete
Faculty of Science
Edificio Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz,
Private Bag X1