Team:TU Darmstadt/Partnership
Micropollutants are small, harmful, and prevalent. The common usage of drugs like painkillers, anti-inflammatories and other chemicals like organic dyes leads to an increased concentration of these compounds in wastewater. In addition to medication (e.g. diclofenac), micropollutants derive from pesticides, industrial chemicals and much more. To date, wastewater treatment plants cannot filter out these compounds efficiently [1]. This causes rising concentrations of environmentally harmful substances in the waters around treatment plants, directly resulting in increased mortality of zebra mussels and acid burns on cornea of trout. As a result, many fish species have become extinct, with many more to be impacted if no intervention occurs [2].
But three German iGEM teams are focused on solving this problem by utilizing laccases (figure 1). We are from Darmstadt, Kaiserslautern, and Stuttgart and all of us see these micropollutants as a huge problem impacting our planet. In this Partnership webpage you can find a comparison of our three projects and useful literature recommendations or expert excerpts from interviews we’ve conducted. We would be glad if we inspire you to improve our projects in future endeavours and help you with our advice.
To get a good entry into the field of wastewater treatment figure 2 explains the current steps of a typical wastewater treatment in Germany. Most of these steps are the same in different countries, which you can see in our comparison of the wastewater meetings with other countries. You can find short descriptions of each part in the table below [3].
| Stage | System | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Mechanical Treatment Stage | Intake Drain (inlet) | Wastewater enters the treatment plant. |
| Mechanical Treatment Stage | Rake | Separates large solids. |
| Mechanical Treatment Stage | Sand Trap | Wastewater is slowed down to enable remaining debris to drop to the bottom of the tank. |
| Mechanical Treatment Stage | Grease Trap | Grease is filtered out. |
| Mechanical Treatment Stage | Primary Clarifier | In the initial clarifier, all solids that did not fall out in the previous tanks are separated. Water is held here for several hours in order to skim off materials floating at the top. Materials at the bottom of the clarifier are collected by scrapers and pumped off. |
| Biological Treatment Stage | Activated& Sludge Basin | In this basin an artificial environment is created where biologically useful microorganisms can thrive. Herein temperature, oxygen levels, and contact time are controlled, enabling microorganisms to convert remaining organic waste into CO2. |
| Biological Treatment Stage | Secondary Sedimentation Basin | Here microorganisms can convert the remaining dissolved solids into suspended solids that fall out of solution. |
| Sludge Treatment | Grease | Collected grease. |
| Sludge Treatment | Primary Sludge | Collected sludge containing an excess of water. |
| Sludge Treatment | Sand | Collected sand. |
| Sludge Treatment | Screenings | Collected large solids. |
| Sludge Treatment | Thickener | Reduces water in sludge. |
| Sludge Treatment | Return Flow | Here the microorganisms flow back to the biological step. Without this step, organism concentration in the Activated Sludge Basin would drop too low. |
| Sludge Treatment | Raw Sludge | Sludge with lower water composition than in primary sludge. |
| Sludge Treatment | Digestion Tower | Large tower where biogas is collected. | Fourth Purifications Stage | Ozonolysis | Elimination of micropollutants through direct or indirect ozone oxidation [3]. Usually implemented after the biological treatment stage [4]. | Fourth Purifications Stage | Activated Carbon | Elimination of micropollutants via filtration with activated carbon. Activated carbon granules must always be kept in a separate basin (at the time of writing), while powder can be included in other steps ( e.g. biological treatment stage) [4]. |
Partnership Timeline
Meeting No. 1 05/25/2020
Introductions between Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern, general discussion about project details and possible collaboration ideas (HPLC, colorimetric test, exchange enzymes produced, etc.).
Meeting No. 2 06/02/2020
Meeting between Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern to discuss questions on collaboration with iGEM Ambassador Carolina. Documentation requirements, communication and exchange of data, what qualifies as a partnership vs. a collaboration.
Meeting No. 3 06/20/2020
Initial meeting of Darmstadt and Kaiserslautern, introductions and learn about each other’s projects. Talk about COVID-19 hurdles, possible collaboration options, and current projects from other teams (Dusseldorf postcards, Marburg meetups, etc).
Meeting No. 407/06/2020
First meeting with all three groups, introductions and project summary, collaboration ideas, discussion of current COVID-19 hurdles and iGEM activities, also discuss livestream collaboration with all teams.
Meeting No. 5 07/31/2020
Darmstadt and Kaiserslautern plan their livestream, discuss logistics of the segments and technical requirements, attended multiple meetings.
Meeting No. 6 08/06/2020
Updated current status of lab work, exchanged programing tips, discussed wiki planning and expert interview collaborations.
Meeting No. 7 08/20/2020
Confirm laccase wiki idea as collaboration, discuss possible page ideas and navigation, determine which group will create wiki framework, and best ways to meet partnership criteria.
Meeting No. 809/03/2020
Discuss the laccase wiki project, determine page setup and organization, assign task responsibilities and create google docs for each corresponding page.
Meeting No. 909/21/2020
Finalized wiki homepage text, confirmed layout of wiki pages and assigned tasks for each group.
Meeting No. 1009/23/2020
Expert exchange discussion about current and upcoming interviews with experts (i.e. Nordman, Schlosser, Sané), discussed questions exchanged between groups for each expert.
Meeting No. 11 10/01/2020
Deciding on the name of the group (The Three Oxiteers!), confirmed style of methods page and organization, assigned tasks for the literature page and methods section to each group, Darmstadt will provide a preview of the site template.
Meeting No. 12 10/08/2020
Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart planned a podcast with expert Christan Kaiser, discussed logistics of the interview, questions to be asked of the guest and technical requirements.
Meeting No. 13 10/09/2020
Reviewed the current structure of the wiki online, discussed image and chart final choices, small corrections to current texts, expert link verifications for each team and literature page.
Meeting No. 14 10/13/2020
Confirmed layout of all pages, finalize main and methods pages for upload and confirm grammar check, verify final plan for literature and expert page, confirm citation style.
Meeting No. 15 10/16/2020
Last meeting before wiki freeze. Discussed important aspects of our partnership page and finalized the design.
