Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology blog

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology is pleased to highlight our new collection exploring transformation and innovation for resilient equitable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services, Guest Edited by May Sule (Cranfield University, UK), George Wainaina (Eawag aquatic research, Switzerland) and Saskia Nowicki (University of Oxford, UK).

Coverage and sustainability of equitable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems is a major concern for developing countries. It is also a concern in many middle- and high-income countries, especially from an inequality lens. Research has identified several sustainability challenges, including poor maintenance, inappropriate technology, corruption, non-participation of stakeholders, insufficient operational and regulatory capacity, politics and bureaucracy, and inadequate sector financing particularly for operation and maintenance. Furthermore, global challenges of climate change and population growth pose short- and long-term threats to safe and reliable WASH.

Climate resilience, innovation, intersectional sensitivity, and systems strengthening are currently highlighted as necessary for sustainability and equitability in the WASH sector. As such, an interdisciplinary critical outlook that cuts across technical, social, economic, environmental and governance domains is necessary for sustainable progress on safe and reliable WASH services. This themed collection will focus on WASH systems transformation and innovation. These concepts here are defined broadly as: systems are understood as complex, adaptive collections of interrelated elements from which intended or unintended functions emerge; innovation can be any new method, idea, process or product that may influence change within the system. We welcome different types of papers, including literature reviews, critical perspectives, conceptual analyses, and empirical studies using quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches. Articles could provide a more general perspective or focus on a particular area. Co-authorship from practitioners is strongly encouraged.

Topics that may be included in this collection include:

• Climate-resilient WASH
• Integrating resilience in water and sanitation safety plans for urban and rural settings
• WASH interlinkages with other fundamental services (such as, but not limited to, solid waste and storm water management, integrated water resources management)
• Data monitoring approaches and management for informed decision making (including but not limited to decentralised, digitalised and participatory monitoring / citizen science approaches)
• Role of individual and organisational behaviour change in resilience and sustainability
• Partnerships and other organisational drivers and barriers for WASH service provision
• Financing models and options for sustainable water and sanitation services
• Opinions and perspectives looking beyond 2030 and dialogues for UN Water post-SDG

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

The submission deadline is 2^nd February 2026.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today, quoting ‘EWWASH25’ in the ‘Comments to the Editor’ when submitting your manuscript.

For more information on the scope of Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology and our author guidelines, please visit our website at rsc.li/es-water or email us at eswater-rsc@rsc.org. See the open call details here: https://rsc.li/WASH

SinS 2025 represents the premier meeting in the UK promoting analytical science. It brings together several RSC interest groups including the Separation Science Group, Environmental Chemistry Group, Water Science Forum, Food Group, and the Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group under one roof for an exciting three-day showcase of the latest developments across the spectrum of analytical science.

The conference will bring together researchers, scientists, and industry leaders to discuss the latest research and innovations in analytical measurement techniques developed and applied in everything from large-scale citizen science water quality monitoring to future medicines. In particular, the conference aims to discuss global priority challenges that we can tackle together.

The conference program, is now live and available to view here: https://www.ilmexhibitions.com/sins/conference-programme-2025/

As part of our partnership, The Royal Society of Chemistry will be publishing a selection of papers in a dedicated Themed Collection across the following journals:

• Analyst – The home of premier fundamental discoveries, inventions and applications in the analytical and bioanalytical sciences
• Analytical Methods – Early applications of new analytical methods and technology demonstrating potential for societal impact
• Environmental Science: Process & Impacts – A multidisciplinary journal for the environmental chemical sciences
• Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology – Innovation for sustainable water
• Materials Advances – An open access journal publishing across the breadth of materials science
• Nanoscale Advances – An open access journal publishing across the breadth of nanoscience and nanotechnology
• New Journal of Chemistry – A journal for new directions in chemistry
• RSC Advances – At the heart of open access for the global chemistry community
• RSC Sustainability – Dedicated to sustainable chemistry and new solutions

The deadline for submissions to the collection will be 3rd November 2025. Upon submission, please mention you are submitting to the “SinS 2025” themed collection.

We are delighted to also be sponsoring poster prizes at the event. Check out the full list of posters here: https://www.ilmexhibitions.com/sins/posters/

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology is pleased to announce that Dr Ming Xie has joined the journal as an Associate Editor. Ming is a Lecturer of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Bath, and an Industrial Fellow by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Ming’s research is based on membrane technology relating to the areas of food, energy, and water. He was the recipient of the Australia Cheung Kong Endeavour Award in 2018. Dr Xie has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals. His research has attracted more than £15M research funding from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Society, British Council and Leverhulme Trust. He also serves in the Technical Advisory Committee for IChemE Sustainability Hub.

As an Associate Editor, Ming welcomes submissions in the areas of membranes, nanofiltration, osmosis and other similar topics relating to water treatment. If you have work that would be relevant to Ming’s expertise, or the journal more generally, submit now to Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology.

Dr. Lin received his Ph.D. from the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University (USA). He is currently working as a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering. His research focuses on development of advanced materials and catalysts for energy and environmental applications. In the past few years, he has been becoming one of leading experts for environmental applications of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and their derivatives. He has also served as editors and editorial members for more than 10 journals. Dr. Lin has co-authored more than 365 SCI journal papers with a H-index of 58 and more than 12700 citations. From February 2024, Prof. Lin will join the Institute of Analytic and Environmental Sciences at National Tsing Hua University (Hsinchu City, Taiwan).

Read Kun-Yi Andrew Lin ’s Emerging Investigator article “Enhancing Degradation of Ciprofloxacin in Water using Oxone activated by Urchin-like Cubic and Hollow-structured Cobalt@N-doped Carbon prepared via Etching-Engineering” and read more about him in the interview below:

Your recent Emerging Investigator Series paper focuses on Enhancing Degradation of Ciprofloxacin in Water using Oxone activated by Urchin-like Cubic and Hollow-structured Cobalt@N-doped Carbon prepared via Etching-Engineering: A. How has your research evolved from your first article to this most recent article?

As I was trained as an environmental chemical engineer, I have been focusing the development of functional materials to respond to environmental issues and challenges from chemical and material perspectives. In my very first publication, I integrated organic-inorganic hybrid materials to combine advantages of organic soft matters and inorganic solid particles for capturing CO2. Similarly, for affording synergistic effects, the current study further utilizes benefits of inorganic metals and organic carbonaceous substrates to formulate this hybrid material comprised of cobalt embedded onto N-doped carbon with an intriguing hollow morphology in order to maximize active surfaces of catalysts.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

At this moment, I am quite fascinated by metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are a versatile platform for various applications. MOFs can be also tuned to become tools for dealing with conventional and emerging environmental problems.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

While designing and developing nanomaterials is interesting and promising, practical applications using nanomaterials would still encounter challenges in reality. Therefore, it is crucial to consider both reality and fancy to develop materials that can be feasibly implemented and operated in practical applications and still retain advantages of nanoscale features.

What do you find most challenging about your research?

The most challenging part of my current research is to integrate fundamental/theoretical perspectives with experimental investigations as the quantum computational chemistry is increasingly adopted as a useful tool to elucidate materials sciences. However, proper applications of quantum computational chemistry for understanding materials science and relationships between materials and reactions would be still quite challenging.

In which upcoming conferences or events may our readers meet you?

I will plan to attend conferences related to chemistry and chemical engineering. Therefore, it may be possible to meet up together at conferences held by American Chemical Society or Royal Society of Chemistry.

How do you spend your spare time?

I like to spend my spare time hanging out with my family to explore natural scenes and I also like to cook to prepare nice cuisines for my family!

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

If I were not a scientist, I probably would be an industrial designer to design vehicles or shoes to exercise my creativity and imagination.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

“No pain, no gain!” The academia is actually very competitive and you are competing with so many talented peers. Therefore, you need to really devote yourself and work hard to achieve your goals!

Jeseth Delgado Vela, PhD is Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Howard University. Her research applies tools in molecular biology to develop sustainable and cost-efficient urban water treatment. She received her PhD and master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan. She received her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a recipient of the Ford Foundation Dissertation Award (2016), was named an Early Career Research Fellow by the Gulf Research Program in 2021, and was awarded an NSF CAREER Award in 2022. In Fall 2023, she will join the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University.

Read Jeseth Delgado Vela’s Emerging Investigator article “The role of phage lifestyle on wastewater microbial community structure and function: insights from diverse microbial environments” and read more about her in the interview below:

Your recent Emerging Investigator Series paper focuses on The role of phage lifestyle on wastewater microbial community structure and function: insights from diverse microbial environments. How has your research evolved from your first article to this most recent article? 

My first article discussed control of biological nitrogen removal systems in wastewater treatment. My independent research career has focused on developing novel ways to control microbial communities. I am currently focused on studying microbial community molecular signals, including signals that phages use, and how engineers may hack these signals for bioprocess improvements.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment? 

I am excited about applying bioinformatic methods to evaluate phage communities and auxiliary metabolic genes in wastewater microbial communities. I’m energized by just how hard this line of research is, there really are a lot of unknowns on the role and ecology of phage in wastewater.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research? 

I think there is a lot of interest in controlling microbial communities using phages (phage therapy for wastewater). It’s an exciting concept, but I think we need to better understand the hosts, ecology, and function of phages in wastewater treatment.

What do you find most challenging about your research? 

We have a lot of bioinformatic tools that we can apply, but there are so many unknowns in environmental microbial communities. It can be frustrating to have the majority of your data be ‘unknown proteins’ or ‘unknown organisms.’ But, this is also a motivating aspect of the research—there is so much left to understand!

In which upcoming conferences or events may our readers meet you? 

I’ll be at AEESP in Boston in June.

How do you spend your spare time? 

I love outdoor entertaining of friends and family. If you visit me and the weather is nice enough, there will be a grill party. I also am trying to grow veggies to varying degrees of success.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist? 

Truthfully, I probably would be a practicing environmental engineer. If I were more artistic, I would choose to be an architect.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists? 

I think it is often easy for me to lose sight of what a privilege it is to get to think about solutions for a living. I often cope with the demands of building my scientific career by reminding myself how lucky I am to explore my curiosity, collaborate, and continuously learn.

Dr. Kyoung-Yeol Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental & Sustainable Engineering at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology (GIST, South Korea) in 2014. Prior to his appointment at the University at Albany, SUNY, Dr. Kim worked at Pennsylvania State University as a post-doctoral research fellow. Dr. Kim has published 51 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, and his publications have drawn > 3,900 citations (h index: 33, google scholar citation) to date. Dr. Kim is now serving as an early career advisory board member for the Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters, and he was recognized as an Outstanding Reviewer in 2018 for Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology. Dr. Kim’s research group (Kim Research Group @ UAlbany) is now conducting multiple research projects including energy and resource recoveries (electricity, hydrogen, nutrients, etc.) from waste streams using (bio)electrochemical systems, and also per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) treatment using electrochemical processes.

Read Kyoung-Yeol’s Emerging Investigator article “Impacts of aeration flow rates and bubble sizes on PFOA/PFOS removal in electrocoagulation” and read more about him in the interview below:

Your recent EmergingInvestigator Series paper focuses on Impacts of aeration flow rates and bubble sizes on PFOA/PFOS removal in electrocoagulation. How has your research evolved from your first article to this most recent article?

Electrochemical reactions are everywhere in this world so we can use electrochemical principles to solve the problems in the environmental engineering field. This article is a story about one electrochemical process (electrocoagulation) to remove per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from water. Our previous work to control PFAS using electrocoagulation focused on reducing energy requirements. We initially examined a novel electrocoagulation system with an air-cathode to utilize oxygen as an electron acceptor without aeration. In that study, we concluded that aeration could be essential to secure the high PFAS removal efficiency by electrocoagulation. Thus, we have further worked on this concept to explore how aeration affects PFAS removal as well as other performances in electrocoagulation, We have examined different types of bubbles with various flow rates to systematically examine the impacts of aeration in the electrocoagulation system.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

Aeration is not common in conventional electrocoagulation. There are several studies that employed aeration to improve the oxidation of target contaminants, but not many researchers tried to use oxygen as an electron acceptor. Also, previous electrocoagulation studies only focused on the role of metal hydroxide flocs on PFAS removal. It was a reasonable approach, but we conclude that aeration is also crucial to control PFAS in the electrocoagulation system. This work is the first study that systematically examined the role of aeration (or flotation) in electrocoagulation for PFAS control.

 In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

Adding aeration to electrocoagulation can reduce the intrinsic energy requirement by replacing the hydrogen evolution reaction with an oxygen reduction reaction (which is much more thermodynamically favorable) at the cathode. However, adding aeration will also increase the energy cost. At this point, aeration for electrocoagulation should be optimized to minimize the entire energy consumption. Also, a continuous flow study with realistic water samples should be further examined at a larger scale.

What do you find most challenging about your research?

I have been working on various electrochemical processes to date, electrochemical processes are usually considered sustainable approaches since electrochemical processes are usually environmentally friendly compared to other existing chemical processes. Most of the electrochemical processes are facing the practicability issues like scale-up and running under more realistic conditions. To overcome these barriers, materials and reactor design still need to be improved to maintain reasonable performances at a larger scale.

In which upcoming conferences or events may our readers meet you?

I am going to present this work at the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) conference in Boston in June 2023.

How do you spend your spare time?

As a father of two little sons, I have to spend my spare time with them in the playground, backyard, playroom, etc. I am sure this applies to other parents with kids too.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I might have become a professional baseball player. Not sure if I could play in MLB though. There are a lot to learn from baseball (and other sports as well).

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I am not in a position that can give advice to others, but here’s one thing. Every person has their own pace. For example, some people receive (so-called) prominent grants or awards at a very early stage but some people don’t. However, it doesn’t mean that those slow starters are doing something long. As long as you think you are working hard, do not compare yourself to others. You will reach your goals at some point.