Rachel is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, following an Anne McLaren Fellowship. Her research lies in wastewater, treatment, and reuse in the urban water cycle with a focus on pollutants, water quality and waste valorisation opportunities. Analytics, fate studies and process technologies are used to understand how wastewater use and reuse impacts and propagates in the urban water cycle (e.g. wastewater treatment, irrigation for crops, dairy farm wastewater slurries). This incorporates understanding the variability of the water matrix and pollutant load, as well as ecosystem and anthropogenic influences and how these inform on pollutant remediation and process performance. Research questions include:
- evaluating wastewater treatment as a manufacturing process
- bioprocess and advanced material treatment technologies to remediate pollutants from wastewater (e.g. pharmaceuticals, steroids, metal, antimicrobial resistance)
- waste valorisation opportunities from wastewaters (pollutants to products) e.g. green bedding for the dairy farming industry, and novel adsorbents for chemical recovery from wastewaters
- evaluating the influence of complex variable process environments on pollutant fate and process performance e.g. enzyme activity as an indicator of process health
Institutional page: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/engineering/people/rachel.gomes
Cohort 2
EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing Research 