Two winners of the Mülheim Water Award in 2008

In 2008, the international jury has decided in favour of two projects from Austria.   The first project is titled „Modular conceptual modelling in urban drainage – development and application of CITY DRAIN” and was carried out by Dr. Stefan Achleitner from the University of Innsbruck (Austria). The project deals with the development of a mathematical simulation environment with the objective of achieving an integrated optimisation of urban drainage. The „CITY DRAIN” software is an open source software and allows a parallel simulation of the procedures within the sewage system, including the rainwater treatment, the sewage plant and the receiving water body.

Award Ceremony 2008

There were two winning projects. One by Dr. Bernhard Wett from the University of Innsbruck on the left and the second from Dr. Stefan Achleitner, also from the University of Innsbruck on the right.

The second winner is a project called „Development of the DEMON – process for an energy saving sewage plant” and was submitted by Dr. Bernhard Wett, also from the University of Innsbruck. It describes the large-scale implementation of an innovative process of nitrogen removal from sludge water. The focus is on the development of a regulation procedure from laboratory and pilot plant tests to the large-scale realization of the process by means of suspended biomass in a Sequential Batch Reactor in a municipal sewage plant in Austria. Furthermore, the energy balance of this plant indicated that the DEMON process can contribute significantly to the energy autarchy of sewage plants.

Both projects were awarded with a prize money of 10,000,- € respectively. The Lord Mayoress of Mülheim, Mrs. Dagmar Mühlenfeld, conducted the award ceremony on the 10th of September 2008 during the award dinner held in the course of the World Water Congress of the International Water Association (IWA) in Vienna.