Background
During the fall of 2011 a group of colleagues from Sweden and
Finland met to discuss future possibilities for international
cooperation across the waters of
Kvarken. The starting point was to
identify the strengths of the participating people and
organisations. One such clearly identifiable strength was a certain
level of expertise within the field of
vibrational spectroscopy. At
the disposal of the potential consortium was also an expertise
within chemistry and microbiology, as well as a considerable
instrument pool. Thus, the task was to find a research topic which
utilises these strengths and possibilities. The criteria were that
the topic should be of equal importance in Finland and Sweden, that
the topic should support a sustainable development in the region,
and that as many people and organisations as possible should benefit
from the outcome of the work.
The topic for cooperation therefore came to be “Chemical, biological,
and spectroscopic studies of flows in biologic wastewater treatment,
Mare Purum”. Biological
wastewater treatment is used in a large
number of municipal treatment plants, as well as in the regionally
important
pulp and paper industry. Although this is a well-known
and established method of dealing with wastewater, it is impaired by
the vulnerability of any biological system. A disturbance in the
process can have long term effects on the effluents from the
facility. It was assumed that increasing the knowledge around
biological wastewater through new measurements (vibrational and wet
chemistry) and studies of the microbial activity could be used to
enhance the performance of the existing facilities in the region.
Since the benefits of this would have an impact on the environmental
level rather than the purely economic level, it was recognised that
a number of stakeholders can take part without any concerns for
competitive considerations. Furthermore, the facilities in Sweden
and Finland essentially all stress the shared waters of the Gulf of
Botnia, which gives the topic a true cross-border perspective.
These ideas were agreed upon by the steering committee of the Botnia
Atlantica programme as well as the national co-financiers The
Regional Council of Ostrobothnia and Region Västerbotten. Thus, the
consortium was able to initiate the activities in the Mare Purum
project in March 2012, and the project will continue to June 2014.