Agnieszka Renman

Agnieszka Renman is PhD in Land and Water Resources Engineering and Docent in Environmental Engineering with a specialization in Land and Water Engineering at KTH, researcher, teacher and Head of SEED & Water Centre Laboratory. She has a background in agricultural environmental engineering from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, SGGW. Her research involves the use of reactive filter media or sorbents for the treatment of polluted water and sediments. She took an active part in developing Polonite® into a successful product, which is manufactured by Polonite Nordic AB and used in small-scale wastewater treatment facilities (see Portfolio). The current research focus is on the new challenge to develop a new generation of Polonite and other filter media for water and wastewater treatment, and to adopt many reactive composites to remove phosphorus and other contaminants released from sediment and from the hypolimnetic lake or seawater. A thin-layer capping technology, based on calcium silicate composites, is developed. Moreover, a technology is designed for sequestering the benthic phosphorus flux and phosphorus in sediment superficial water followed by density sorting dredging for P recycling, metal recovery and, organic contaminants (e.g. PFAS) immobilisation/removal. The goal is to find uses for all sediment and sludge components (e.g. silt, rare earth elements) in a circular economy. Research is performed as a Triple Helix (research-enterprises-public), i.e. to demonstrate and motivate pollution abatement and phosphorus recovery of a potential resource among public executive bodies. Moreover,  nutrient removal structures are technically developed, i.e. structures that can house the filter media, for trapping phosphorus and other nutrients, and further be recycled in agriculture as fertilisers or soil amendments. Treated water can be stored in sub-surface dams for use during times of water shortage. Current research in domestic wastewater treatment is focused on energy and nutrient-saving technology by partial nitritation-hydroxyapatite coupled process (PN-HAP). Moreover,  the treatment of stormwater, particularly road runoff, is studied in terms of metal removal and possible recycling and, microplastic and rubber removal.