Stanford moved into the final phase of construction of the William and Cloy Codiga Resource Recovery Center, which will test and accelerate the development of promising technologies for the recovery of clean water and energy from wastewater. The center could offer a paradigm shift in wastewater treatment for the public and private sectors by informing policy makers that wastewater treatment can produce energy, fertilizers, sustainable materials, and water for irrigation and drinking. The center replaces the traditional aerobic model of treatment with anaerobic treatment, converting organic material into methane, which can then be used to power treatment processes and lower their operation footprint.

A collaborative effort among researchers and water management specialists from the Stanford School of Engineering, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford’s Department of Sustainability and Energy Management, and the Stanford-led Engineering Research Center for Re-inventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), the center is the first to feature the innovative staged anaerobic fluidized bed membrane bioreactor in the Western Hemisphere and the largest such system in the world.