Soos Erno Research and Development Center at University of Pannonia

The Water Technology Research Group plays a special role in the field of industry and education because with its foundation in 2014 a unique knowledge center was set up in Nagykanizsa in the field of water purification and water treatment. The work of the Research Group is supported by a network of national and international industrial experts. The staff of the Group are experts in different fields (chemist, biologist, hydrobiologist, environmental engineer, geographer, hydrogeologist engineer), therefore the branching knowledge ensures the wide range of scope of the Research Group. The main areas of research are water treatment, development of industrial water and wastewater treatment methods with sustainable technological solutions. A further research direction is the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of micro-contaminant pollution (organic, inorganic pollution, microplastics) in different water bodies and their removal technologies. The future objective is to enhance the application of artificial intelligence in current research areas, utilizing data mining tools. In case of particular company needs the Research Group undertakes to hold lectures or complex educational programmes in Hungarian or in English in connection with water treatment, new technological procedures, analytical methods, biological or microbiological questions, etc. The Research Group has its own well-equipped laboratory for doing experiments in batch or pilot scale treatment technologies with the supportation of high sensitivity analytical measurements (LC-MS; GC-MS).

Main activities are:

• Reviewing water treatment systems, proposing optimization strategies, and evaluating water recycling options, along with OPEX-CAPEX calculations.

• Conducting case studies on operational systems, suggesting improvements in chemical usage, and providing cost-effectiveness calculations.

• Exploring "Zero Liquid Discharge" or similar technologies.

• Evaluating obsolete systems and recommending innovative, state-of-the-art technologies based on international practices and/or experiments.

• Performing classical and high-sensitive instrumental water chemistry measurements (water and sludge matrices) (not accredited).

• Detecting of COVID-19 and other gastroenterological virus hereditary material in wastewater

• Designing and implementing semi-operational (Pilot) experiments in
membrane testing for water treatment systems, including microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, and forward osmosis techniques.

• Developing low-cost and magnetic adsorbents for wastewater treatment (e.g., pesticide removal, irrigation use).

• Developing biosensors for measuring organic micropollutants.

• Establishing Water 4.0 framework-supervised water treatment and monitoring systems.