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    • Water analysis Conducting and evaluating physical-chemical and microbiological water testing in accordance with the German Drinking Water Ordinance and other relevant legal regulations.
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    • Treatment technologies Develop sustainable water supply concepts. Implement, monitor and optimise new technologies. Test and further develop existing treatment methods.
    • Micropollutants and microorganisms Develop and improve the method of determination using cutting-edge equipment. Investigate the presence, behaviour and retention of inorganic and organic micropollutants in the water cycle and drinking water treatment.
    • Network management and drinking water installation Microbiological quality change, deposit formation and cleaning and optimisation of the distribution network operation. Evaluate and analyse corrosion damage.
    • Risk management Support for water supply companies to establish a Water Safety Plan. Benefit from our extensive expertise.
    • Environmental biotechnology and contaminated sites Evaluation of the decomposition potential at contaminated locations. Development of sustainable ways to eliminate pollutants from the environment. Employ a combination of microbiological and technical methods.
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    • Resource protection Protection of water resources, risk management in water catchment areas
    • Environmental biotechnology Technical and biological methods for the elimination of microorganisms, microbiological degradation processes
    • Microorganisms Developing and applying reliable and sensitive detection methods, evaluating disinfection and treatment measures
    • Micropollutants Determination of micropollutants, transformation products and microplastics reliably and sensitively, investigate behaviour in the water cycle, qualified risk assessment
    • Waste water and water cycle Use of biological decomposition, developing integrated water supply and waste water management concepts
    • New technologies and products Testing and optimizing processes and products to treat, disinfect and post-process drinking water for efficiency, security and robustness
    • Asset management and infrastructure Development of management strategies and innovative tools to evaluate the condition of the supply network and its components
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  • Micropollutants

Micropollutants

Micropollutants in sewage treatment plant processes, rivers, streams and drinking water resources are of top priority for the water industry and require the continuous development of new analytical procedures. Only once these substances can be reliably determined at a suitable sensitivity level, is it possible to investigate their behaviour in the water cycle and in the treatment of drinking water, and to make a qualified risk assessment. Biotic and abiotic processes in aquatic systems and in technical water treatment can metabolise substances, which means we also need to research the clarification of these transformation products. For this we are using the latest high-resolution mass spectrometry processes. A new research area is the presence of microplastics in the aquatic environment. We have awarded this topic a special research priority.

Research areas

Development of new analytical procedures

The availability of reliable and efficient methods of analysis is a basic requirement for implementing meaningful scientific testing programmes and for a qualified risk assessment. Developing these methods using the latest high performance analytical techniques such as tandem mass spectrometry is one of our core competencies.

Environmental behaviour of substances

Nature based water treatment needs to be the aim of all parties involved in water supply. For example, in order to assess the efficiency of soil passage for the micropollutant residue, we use theoretical and experimental approaches to determine reliable estimations on the environmental behaviour of the respective substance and targeted recommended actions. 

Substance behaviour in technical treatment

Water supply companies must be well equipped for all eventualities. Testing on how to remove possible problem substances using technical treatment methods such as ozonation, activated carbon and membrane filtration is therefore part of our research.

Transformation products

Substances do not disappear – they transform. Using methods such as high-resolution mass spectrometry, we identify in detail which transformation products are produced in a chemical or biological process.

Microplastics

The presence of microplastics in the aquatic environment has attracted widespread public interest. At present, there are only a few reliable studies available. For this reason, we aim to close knowledge gaps and are concerned with issues of representative sampling and sample preparation, further development of analytical techniques and investigating the presence of microplastics in drinking and surface water.

Projects

Water chemistry research
At-line measurement method for rapid analysis of total zinc in process waters (ZinkAtline)

The aim of the project is to develop an at-line measurement method for analysing the total zinc content in process waters from steel production and…

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Analysis
Persistent and mobile micropollutants in surface waters of lower saxony

Comprehensive monitoring data for many so-called PMT/vPvM-substances is still scarce. A large-scale surface water monitoring program in Lower Saxony…

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Analysis
Long term trends for Trifluoracetic acid in terrestrial environmental samples

Emissions of TFA and its precursors have been increasing for years - we also see this trend in plant samples from the German Environmental Specimen…

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Technology
Zero Pollution of Persistent, Mobile substances (ZeroPM)

Persistent, mobile (PM) substances are being recognized as serious threats to the safety of water resources. In many cases, drinking water supplies…

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Analysis
Recycling of saline waters (RIKovery)

The project consortium pursues the vision of reuse industrial water flows as completely as possible in order to relieve natural water resources.

The…

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Analysis
Effect-directed analysis and NTS for the evaluation of drinking water production processes

The WBA-NTS-ProTrink project is intended to further develop the approach developed in a previous project of using effect-ditected analysis in…

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More projects
Publications

TZW Publication Series Volume 84: Minimierungsstrategie für den PSM-Metaboliten-Eintrag ins Grundwasser [Strategy to minimise PSM metabolites entering groundwater]

    

TZW Publication Series Volume 78: Verhalten von Phosphonaten als Antiscalants bei der Membranfiltration [Behaviour of phosphonates as antiscalants in membrane filtration]

    

TZW Publication Series Volume 62: Elimination anthropogener organischer Spurenstoffe im Zuge der Grundwasseranreicherung [Elimination of anthropogenic organic micropollutants during groundwater enrichment]

   

TZW Publication Series Volume 59: Bewertung von Transformationsprodukten bei der Trinkwasseraufbereitung [Assessment of transformation products in drinking water treatment]

 

Volumes from the TZW publication series can be purchased here.

Contact

Dr. Frank Sacher +49 721 9678-120 +49 721 9678-104 Send email
Solutions
  • Water analysis
  • Testing of products and devices
  • Treatment technologies
  • Micropollutants and microorganisms
  • Network management and drinking water installation
  • Risk management
  • Environmental biotechnology and contaminated sites
Research
  • Resource protection
  • Environmental biotechnology
  • Microorganisms
  • Micropollutants
  • Waste water and water cycle
  • New technologies and products
  • Asset management and infrastructure
  • Safety and security, digitalisation and management
About TZW
  • Profile
  • Organisation
  • Locations
  • Partners
Information
  • News
  • Publications
  • Videos
  • Press

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