Rita D. G. Franca
PhD student



Research Activities

Aiming to contribute for the development of an effective textile wastewater biotreatment process using the novel aerobic granular sludge (AGS) technology, my work has focused on: 1) the manipulation of bioreactor hydrodynamics to promote azo dye biodecolorization; 2) microbial population selection towards complete dye biodegradation; and 3) effect of silver-NP in AGS bioreactors performance.

Selected Publications

Franca RDG, Pinheiro HM, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lourenço ND (2017) Stability of aerobic granules during long-term bioreactor operation, Biotechnology Advances 36: 228-246. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2017.11.005.

Franca RDG, Ortigueira J, Pinheiro HM, Lourenço ND (2017) Effect of SBR feeding strategy and feed composition on the stability of aerobic granular sludge in the treatment of a simulated textile wastewater. Water Science and Technology 76.5: 1188-1195. doi: 10.2166/wst.2017.300.

Bento JB, Franca RDG, Pinheiro T, Alves LC, Pinheiro HM, Lourenço ND (2017). Using nuclear microscopy to characterize the interaction of textile-used silver nanoparticles with a biological wastewater treatment system. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B 404: 150-154. doi: 10.1016/j.nimb.2017.01.016.

Franca RDG, Vieira A, Mata AMT, Carvalho GS, Pinheiro HM, Lourenço ND (2015) Effect of an azo dye on the characteristics of an aerobic granular sludge sequencing batch reactor treating a simulated textile wastewater. Water Research 85: 327-336. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2015.08.043.

Lourenço ND, Franca RDG, Moreira MA, Gil FN, Viegas CA, Pinheiro HM (2015) Comparing aerobic granular sludge and flocculent sequencing batch reactor technologies for textile wastewater treatment. Biochemical Engineering Journal 104: 57-63. doi: 10.1016/j.bej.2015.04.025.

 

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