Lucca Mancilio’s project focuses on microbial communities for Phosphorus removal. This project was born from Lucca’s passion for conservation and sustainability, and his dream of cleaning up rivers like the polluted Tiete running through his hometown of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Phosphorus pollution causes Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and eutrophication, which contaminate reservoirs with cyanotoxins, cause ecological collapse, and cost millions in water supply and ecosystem-service damage. Wastewater treatment systems remove phosphorus through chemical precipitation or Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR), but does not address non-point pollution-sources. Instead, HABs are combated by dosing waterbodies with alum, but this temporary, costly and outdated, causes loss of biodiversity, and does not impede the entry of new phosphorus. Alternatives are difficult and costly to implement, but economic feasibility can be increased by generating an added-value product through phosphorus recovery.
Although EBPR cannot be applied to open waterbodies, biofilm systems containing phosphate accumulating organisms have emerged as a new strategy to remove phosphorus from synthetic wastewater to be used again as a resource. This study investigates the role that the ecology of these biofilms plays on their performance, efficiency and scalability. I hope to advance this technology for phosphorus recovery not only from wastewater, but also from polluted waterbodies such as local ponds, and evaluate the recovered phosphorus for use as a more sustainable fertilizer.
In spring 2024, he received a UMass Predissertation Grant to kickstart his project and prove his concept. In the future, he hopes to operate a pilot scale of a BSBR at the UMass Water and Environment Technology (WET)-Center, a one of a kind facility in the country poised to deploy innovative solutions directly attached to the Amherst Wastewater Treatment Plant
