IIT Madras Receives New Research Centre for Wastewater Analysis

Indian Institute of Technology Madras is establishing a new research centre that will test city wastewater for indicator organisms and chemicals and make the results public. The facility will serve as an intelligence hub, tracking and preventing virus outbreaks in their early stages.

The International Centre for Clean Water (ICCW) is establishing this Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) research facility, with a $1 million grant from CryptoRelief, an initiative founded by Sandeep Nailwal.

Data collected from various wastewater sources and treatment facilities will be analyzed and made public via dashboards. As we know, mining, power generation, petroleum refineries, breweries, dairy processing, chemical production, food production, and many other industrial processes generate wastewater. According to an IIT Madras press release, this facility will be gradually expanded to other parts of India.

According to the release, Crypto Relief is the result of the global crypto community banding together to assist India in combating the Covid crisis and preparing for future outbreaks.

Water fingerprinting is one of the advantages of wastewater analysis for studying the chemical and biological molecules in it. According to the release, the WBE project includes aspects such as tracking pollutants, pesticides, licit and illicit drugs to which the population is exposed.

According to T Pradeep, Professor-in-Charge, ICCW, IIT Madras, the ICCW team will work on developing a hydro-informatics platform for the city with appropriate modelling tools to provide spatiotemporal information on data derived from WBE studies.

"We intend to help the public, policymakers, practitioners, and public health officials combat the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic through wastewater analysis," says Sandeep Nailwal.

The WBE will also be used to detect emerging issues of concern, such as rising antimicrobial resistance due to antibiotic overuse. Identifying the best policies for controlling pharmaceuticals and personal care products will be extremely beneficial to public health.