Internship: Re-use of Bolsward WWTP effluent

Want to make a difference in the world and work on real life projects in an international environment Apply for an internship at CEW, the applied research hub for advanced water technology. Become part of a motivated team of professionals and students. Together, you devise, research and test your innovative
solutions to the increasing worldwide problems in climate, environment, water and food.

We’re looking for a Bachelor or Master student of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry or Environmental Technology, who’s interested in a research project in the fi eld of water. The project is focused on using treated effluent as process water.

Your role in this project is to help validate a treatment process (sand filtration, membrane filtration, and UV) to ensure the water meets quality standards for laundry use. Using a pilot setup at the Water Application Centre (WAC), you’ll test treated water directly on laundry, focusing on maintaining fabric quality (e.g., preventing discoloration).

Your profile

• You are in the finishing stage of your HBO
• education in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry or Environmental Technology
• You are organized and can structure your work well.
• You can work independently and are ready to ‘own’ the project and the test setup
• You are familiar with basic laboratory techniques
• You have good communication skills

Your responsibilities

• Propose a test plan to achieve the project goals
• Participate in the construction of the experimental setup
• Run a set of tests at the WAC
• Sampling, analyses, measurement
• Reporting (partial) results to project partners
• Writing the final report

About the project

The client is a leading laundry service provider for hospitals and healthcare facilities in the Netherlands. At its location in Bolsward, Friesland, it processes approximately 500 tons of laundry each week, requiring 500 m³ of fresh water daily. Until now, this demand has been met using drinking water.

However, with growing concerns about climate change and increasing freshwater shortages in the Netherlands, Dutch drinking water companies are urging industries to explore alternative water sources. In response, the client aims to transition to using treated effluent from a nearby wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) as process water.

Effluent cannot be used directly in the laundry process—it must first undergo purification to meet the stringent quality requirements for process water. In a previous project, a treatment approach was proposed, consisting of rapid sand filtration (RSF), membrane filtration, and UV treatment.

The goal of this project is to validate that this treatment combination can reliably produce water of the required quality. To achieve this, a pilot setup will be constructed at the Water Application Centre (WAC). The system will include a washing machine to directly test the impact of the treated water on laundry, with a particular focus on preventing discoloration of white fabrics.

This internship offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to sustainable water reuse in industry by testing and optimizing advanced water treatment processes.

Enthusiastic? Send an email to studenten@cew.nl with the subject ‘Internship 2024.P.0008’ and tell us
why you want to do an internship or graduate at the CEW. For more information, please contact Maarten
Trilsbeek on telephone number +31 58 210 09 19.