Humans of TU Delft: Jawairia Imtiaz Ahmad

“I had two opportunities, one of which was a Fulbright scholarship in the USA. But I was really fond of TU Delft because of its research in the water sector. I had something in mind, a research proposal, and I saw that one of the professors was working on this topic. I sent him my proposal and he said they were going to start the same project. It was such a coincidence that the thing that was in my mind a thousand miles away in Pakistan was also starting here. Within three weeks of my e-mail I arrived at Schiphol. Most people say that’s too quick and it really was.

‘This type of research is happening for the first time in the world’

My project focuses on thermal energy recovery from the drinking water distribution system. In water management we are always concerned about drinking water quality. In the Netherland drinking water is distributed without chlorine so water companies invest a lot in the treatment of the drinking water in order to produce a very good quality water. You can say it’s kind of like a probiotic because it has all kinds of bacteria. When the water passes through the different treatment steps, the bad bacteria or pathogens don’t come through, but all other kinds are there. The term they use for this is biologically stable water. The problem with this kind of water is the chance of regrowth of bacteria is higher so you need to monitor it closely. You have to be vigilant that the temperature should be less than 25 degrees and distribution networks should be very clean.

For thermal energy recovery, the challenge was that if you increase the temperature of the water during the heat exchange in winter, we may be providing an environment for the bacteria and microbes to grow. Then the drinking water quality deteriorates. My particular question was to look at all the aspects of the recovery system and what effects they have on microbial quality in drinking water.

We can’t compromise the quality of the drinking water to reduce our carbon footprint because the main purpose of the drinking water distribution system is to provide good quality water to the consumers because they are paying for it and health is the main concern. This type of research focusing on recovering thermal energy from a water distribution system is happening for the first time in the world so that makes it very exciting. We really want this to be applied on a large scale in many places, but it should be safe. I love it because the things you are doing in the lab will actually be used. That’s the main reason I wanted to come to TU Delft, because there is such a focus on applied sciences.”

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Heather Montague / Freelance writer