A team of scientists and engineers with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) joined professors and students at Illinois State University to create a system that optimized chemical usage to control odors and corrosion issues at the MWRD’s Kirie Water Reclamation Plant in Des Plaines.
For their efforts, the group received second place in the WEFTEC 2019 Intelligent Water Systems Challenge, an international event sponsored by the Water Environment Federation. The challenge provided general problem statements and example datasets to participants. Scenarios focused on collection systems, wastewater treatment systems, drinking water treatment systems, source water/watershed, and distribution networks.
“We appreciate the efforts of our team and partners at Illinois State University to put forth a concrete plan that is both technical yet practical in addressing odor and corrosion control at the Kirie Water Reclamation Plant,” said MWRD President Kari K. Steele. “It is our hope that this visionary research can be not only utilized at Kirie but expanded to other water reclamation plants.”
The research team included Senior Environmental Research Scientist and Team Leader Fenghua Yang, MWRD Environmental Research Scientist Thais Pluth, MWRD Senior Engineer Matt Jurjovec, Illinois State School of Information Technology (IT) student Kyle Francq, and School of IT Professors Xing Fang and Yongning Tang.
