Student Pilot Plant Design

Focussing on wastewater treatment, the Pilot Plant uses state of the art digital and digitalisation technologies including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning so that you can tackle real-world problems and gain hand-on experience at industrial scale.

The Pilot Plant demonstrates key Chemical and Biological Engineering concepts so that you can interact with the types of equipment found in the workplace. The flexible, modular design includes multiple unit operations such as feedstock preparation, pre-treatment, membrane separation, post-processing and analysis. The equipment can be run manually or automatically from either the local location or accessed remotely mimicking industrial practice.

You will work in teams on projects that address real industry problems; experience that will enhance your level of knowledge and that you can showcase to potential employers.

Key features of the Pilot Plant:

• Fully integrated across Bachelor of Engineering and Masters of Engineering curriculum
• Interdisciplinary
• Work on real industry projects
• Modularised and flexible design
• Remotely operable
• Demonstrating AI / ML technologies
• Featuring industrial facilities and digital twins
• Resources for student teams
• Dedicated control room space

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the integrated ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis pilot plant

Future Plans

The water treatment pilot plant is only the beginning. In the next phase, a new bioreactor will be added upstream of the water treatment pilot plant.

This biological engineering pilot plant will be:

• Capable of biological water treatment
• Capable of microbial culture
• Integrated with the Water Treatment Pilot