A process engineering approach to water and wastewater treatment education

Development of more stringent water quality standards has been met with development of more sophisticated processing. It is argued that the skills and knowledge of the process engineer are now required to design, operate and manage treatment plants of today. The postgraduate degree courses run by the School of Water Sciences adopt a process engineering approach, giving students a fundamental understanding of unit operations before applying them in the context of the flowsheet. This is achieved by having three parts to a course: a taught element for fundamental skills and knowledge; group design projects for applications of unit operations in flowsheets; and a practical thesis project for application of novel unit operations. Industrial lecturers, groupwork and oral presentation of work helps develop skills relevant to future careers in water and wastewater treatment. Copyright (C) 1996 IAWQ.