Linda Li

Access to safe and reliable drinking water is a fundamental human right, yet remote Indigenous Homeland communities continue to face significant challenges achieving this basic standard. Across WA, health violations of Australian Drinking Water Guidelines for nitrate and uranium have been more frequent in recent years, having been linked to chronic kidney disease, diabetes, blue baby syndrome, and cancers. Furthermore, poor taste and appearance of drinking water drives a preference for unhealthy alternatives, and excessive hardness degrades infrastructure. These create a disproportionate health burden for First Nations peoples, as well as unnecessary social and economic strain. Aligning with recommended pathways to SDGs 6 and 10, and closing the gap for Indigenous Australians, this project works towards the development of a real-time, remote, water quality monitoring platform for application to remote Homeland communities.

A desktop study examined water meter readings of secondary schools in the Perth metropolitan area of Western Australia. From this, a suitable metric for measuring water use in secondary schools was determined. Water use quartiles on a per person basis were also calculated based on 70 secondary schools and benchmarks were established. In addition, a water audit of 9 high water using secondary schools (>20,000 kL/a) was performed to identify key areas where water is used and where water savings can be made. Total water use of these schools decreased by 13% in the 12 months following the completion of the water audits. Having determined water use averages, benchmarks and key areas for water savings, the education industry can make informed decisions about their water use and how to increase efficiency at the schools.

The essential role of pyrrole in comprehending the chemistry of living organisms, coal surrogates and novel drugs is indisputable. However, literature reports a few studies on its reactivity toward prominent oxidizing agents. Herein we present a comprehensive mechanistic study of oxidation of unsubstituted pyrrole with singlet oxygen (O2 1∆g) by deploying a quantum chemical framework leading to the production of succinimide, as the major products, through a Diels-Alder addition of O2 1∆g to the aromatic ring. Other products, comprising maleimide, hydroperoxide, formamide or epoxide adducts, appear to form via rather minor channels. Additionally, we determined that, the primary Diels-Alder channel encompasses a barrier of 41 kJ/mol with a fitted rate constant of k(T)=1.87×10-13 exp(-48 000/RT) cm3 molecule-1 s-1

Fouling caused by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), the products secreted by bacteria, has been regarded as one of significant contributors to deteriorating membrane separation performances. Most current laboratory studies on membrane fouling use selected model foulants, such as alginate, which may not typically represent bacteria-produced EPS. This study aimed to compare the fouling caused by naturally occurring EPS and commercial polysaccharides in forward osmosis (FO) separation, thus possibly suggesting the ideal polysaccharide model in the research of membrane fouling. Three types of commercial polysaccharides, namely alginate, xanthan and pullulan, as well as two types of EPS (EPS-RSW and EPS-FSW) extracted from the bacteria in raw seawater and filtered seawater (RSW 14 and FSW 6) were selected herein. Our results showed that the commercial polysaccharides and the naturally occurring EPS behaved differently in the FO fouling tests, which could be largely attributed to the difference in their solution viscosities. Both of the solutions consisting of EPS exhibited lower viscosities and led to higher permeate fluxes, in comparison to those of the solutions with the commercial alginate and xanthan polysaccharides. The use of pullulan caused the most similar flux change in FO separation to that by utilizing the EPS; thereby we suggest that pullulan be the preferred model polysaccharide to represent EPS in FO fouling research.