BIO

Dr. Sreenivasan is an environmental chemical engineer with specialisation in water & wastewater treatment. His experience cuts across various disciplines in the (waste)water domain. During his master studies, he was involved in research works on removal of residual organic matter from secondary effluent and on treatment of high-strength licorice processing wastewater. 

As part of his doctoral research, he had investigated different methods – including nanofiltration/reverse osmosis, (electro)coagulation, ozonation, struvite precipitation, air stripping, and nitrification – for sustainable and holistic treatment of an old saline (high-strength) landfill leachate. He obtained his PhD for the research on nitrification of this leachate in packed bed biofilm reactor, which was also accompanied by demonstration in pilot-scale at the landfill site. 

During this time, he was also involved in investigation of nanofiltration for the production of drinking water in regions with economic water scarcity and had also contributed towards estimation of aeration requirements (after DWA-A 131 and DWA-M 229) for organics and nitrogen removal from a partial flow at the Municipal wastewater treatment plant, Stade (Germany).

His postdoctoral work at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology was on removal of organic micropollutants (emerging contaminants) by activated carbon adsorption and mathematical modelling of the process. Furthermore, he had contributed towards dynamic simulation of wastewater treatment plants in SIMBA#. During the brief stint as postdoctoral researcher at DVGW Research Centre TUHH, he was involved in the preparation and submission of research proposals on online monitoring of drinking water quality, and novel ultrafiltration membranes for the removal of chromium & arsenic from drinking water.

Dr. Sreenivasan joined the Indian Institute of Science as Assistant Professor in June 2020, where established and heads the SusPaani Lab.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Atallah Al-asad, H.; Parniske, J.; Qian, J.; Alex, J.; Ramaswami, S.; Kätzl, K.; Morck, T. (2022) Development and application of a predictive model for enhanced advanced wastewater treatment by adsorption onto powdered activated carbon. Water Research, 217, 118427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2022.118427 

• Ramaswami, S.; Jalal Uddin, F.M.; Behrendt, J.; Otterpohl, R. (2019). High-rate nitrification of saline wastewaters using fixed-bed reactors. Journal of Environmental Management, 243, 444-452. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.020.

• Ramaswami, S.; Behrendt, J.; Otterpohl, R. (2018). Comparison of NF-RO and RO-NF for the Treatment of Mature Landfill Leachates: A Guide for Landfill Operators. Membranes, 8(2), 17. doi: 10.3390/membranes8020017 

• Ramaswami, S.; Behrendt, J.; Kalyanasundaram, S.; Eggers, S.; Otterpohl, R. (2018). Experiences from an investigation on the potential of packed bed reactors for high rate nitrification of mature landfill leachates. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 22, 59–65. doi: 10.1016/j.jwpe.2018.01.006

• Ramaswami, S.; Behrendt, J.; Wang, G.; Eggers, S.; Otterpohl, R. (2016). Combining magnesium ammonium phosphate precipitation with membrane processes for ammonia removal from methanogenic leachates. Water and Environment Journal, 30 (3–4), 218–226. doi:10.1111/wej.12210