Water and Wastewater Treatment

The four classes that comprise this MicroMasters® program present fundamental principles that are used to design water and wastewater treatment systems for municipal and industrial applications.

The Physical/Chemical Processes of Environmental Engineering class addresses physico/chemical processes, which are central to many Environmental Engineering applications, but also are broadly applied in other engineering disciplines. The course is divided into three modules. Module 1 addresses transport phenomena and reactor theory. The tools presented in Module I are central to the descriptions of processes that are presented in the remainder of the class. Module 2 addresses physical separation processes (i.e., processes for separation of particles from fluids). Module 3 addresses processes that are used to bring about non-microbially-mediated) transformations.

The remaining three courses in the program address biological processes that are applied in water and wastewater treatment applications. The Biological Principles in Wastewater Treatment course introduces the fundamental design principles and practice of biological wastewater treatment and prepares students for designing wastewater treatment systems. The Nutrient Removal and Resource Recovery in Wastewater course introduces the fundamental knowledge and practice of biological nutrient removal in wastewater treatment and prepares students for designing biological nutrient removal systems. The Modern Biotechnologies for Wastewater Treatment course introduces the modern biotechnologies and their applications in biological wastewater treatment and prepares students for understanding, characterizing, and optimizing wastewater treatment systems. The processes that are described in these classes are particularly relevant to water and wastewater treatment, and many examples presented in these classes are from these domains. But opportunities to apply these principles in other settings are also pursued in these classes.

What you'll learn

• Fundamental principles of biological and physico/chemical treatment processes.
• Physical separation processes.
• Chemical and photochemical transformation processes.
• Nutrient removal and resource recovery in wastewater.
• Modern biotechnologies for wastewater treatment.