By: Saneliso Mlambo.
THE Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology (IWWT), at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), will host the official launch of its new state-of-the-art facility at the Steve Biko Campus, on Thursday, 18 July.
The new building comprises of well-equipped laboratories with high-end equipment.
It consists of four floors of approximately 450sqm each, two floors holding 14 laboratories, 2 cold-rooms and a walk-in incubator.
The other 2 floors contain offices, a seminar room, a boardroom and a 49-seater postgraduate student seating facility.
The Institute has a 100sq m greenhouse on the roof containing 4 x 3000L raceway ponds for algae experimentation.
It includes dedicated laboratories for the high-end instrumentation (including Gas Chromatographs, Elemental Analyzer, Ion Chromatograph, Flow Cytometer, Atomic absorption spectrometer, Droplet Digital PCR and Sanger Sequencer) supported by a UPS and a back-up generator.
“Projects undertaken by the IWWT are designed and developed to meet the ever-growing needs of the water sector in South Africa. The Institute offers post-graduate programmes in a wide spectrum of disciplines in science and engineering. These projects have a high applied value, which increases the marketability of students conducting the research. The strength of the Institute lies in its commitment to develop essential skills through student training. The IWWT’s approach is multi-disciplinary, combining the skills of biotechnology, chemistry, environmental health and various engineering disciplines to satisfy the research needs of the water sector,” said the award-winning and internationally recognized IWWT Director, Professor Faizal Bux.