Research Units
Circular Economy
Circular economy focusses on resource recovery from sanitation and wastewater treatment waste streams. Pathways under investigation include sludge pyrolysis to biochar, drum composting, fry-drying of faecal sludge, waste-to-wall building materials, urine-to-fertiliser, emerging-contaminant risk evaluation and agricultural reuse.
Water Efficient Sanitation Solutions
The focus of this research unit is the de-risking and socio-technical evaluation of non-sewered sanitation technologies for municipal deployment. Capabilities include chemical-engineering process analysis, HAZOP assessment, the three-visit (Evaluate, Verify, Validate) field methodology, ISO 30500 / 31800 compliance testing, sensor-based performance monitoring and validated lifecycle costing. The unit hosts the Sanitation Technology Providers Forum. This unit also focusses on designing and optimisating decentralised wastewater treatment systems and greywater management systems.
Circular Economy
Circular economy focusses on resource recovery from sanitation and wastewater treatment waste streams. Pathways under investigation include sludge pyrolysis to biochar, drum composting, fry-drying of faecal sludge, waste-to-wall building materials, urine-to-fertiliser, emerging-contaminant risk evaluation and agricultural reuse.
Health and Hygiene
The focus of the research conducted in this unit is on pathogen monitoring and epidemiological modelling. Capabilities include digital droplet PCR for absolute pathogen quantification, river and coastal health assessment across 50+ KZN river systems, One Health approaches, diarrhoeal-disease early-warning systems, community social assessment and hygiene-behaviour research.
Cross-cutting Research Units
Laboratory Services
The WASH R&D Centre is actively pursuing SANAS / ISO 17025 accreditation and provides the analytical work on which both the research and the service stages depend.
Standards, Accreditation and Policy
Learnings from the applied research is used to validate, revise and develop new product and management standards relevant to non-sewered sanitation. This research also advises on policy reforms at the National and Local Government level (through by-laws, sanitation policies and implementation plans).
Circular Economy
This research (IoT, GIS, remote sensing, ML/AI, smart metering) operates as a cross-cutting support capability toward the de-risking work rather than as a unit in its own right.
Social Assessment and User Engagement
Research conducted in this Unit considers the interaction between water and sanitation services and the communities and individuals who use them. User perceptions of new technologies and the reuse of treated sanitation waste is essential information for the developers of water and sanitation systems.