Ian Bradley
University at Buffalo, NY·Engineering·Early-career
Too much nitrogen and phosphorus in lakes and rivers can feed harmful algal blooms. These blooms can be toxic and cause economic losses and public health risks.
- Fields
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
harmful algal blooms
eutrophication
nutrient pollution
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2030
What they work on
- Identify the environmental and operating factors that improve total nitrogen and phosphorus removal in algae-based wastewater treatment, using lab-scale systems that grow algae on wastewater.
- Characterize the organic nitrogen leaving algal and conventional wastewater treatment processes, and test how well it supports algal growth and toxin production, using molecular and analytical chemistry methods.
- Determine how the makeup of organic nitrogen and the nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratio affect how harmful algal blooms form and change over time, using controlled lab experiments.
More about the research
Efforts to curb blooms usually focus on limiting phosphorus, but nitrogen also drives how fast algae grow and how toxic they become. One way to cut nutrient pollution is to use algae inside wastewater treatment plants to absorb nitrogen and phosphorus before the water is released. This project connects that treatment approach to the question of which nutrients make blooms in the environment more toxic.
Why it matters
Harmful algal blooms threaten drinking water, public health and local economies across the U.S. This work could help wastewater utilities remove more nitrogen and phosphorus using algae. It could also show which forms of nitrogen in discharged wastewater most promote toxic blooms. That information could guide nutrient regulations and help communities that monitor and report blooms.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Caitlyn Butler
University of Massachusetts, MA·Engineering
Demonstrate that oxygenic photogranules, dense clusters of algae, cyanobacteria and bacteria, stay intact and grow stably in nutrient-poor secondary effluent by measuring granule formation, size distribution, density, porosity and shear resistance.
James Moberly
University of Idaho, ID·Engineering
Develop an encapsulated biological material in which phosphorus accumulating organisms, microbes that store large amounts of phosphorus, are immobilized within a polymer structure for use in wastewater treatment.
Nasrin Alamdari
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, FL·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify the hydrological, meteorological, biological, physical and geochemical processes that control nutrient export from urban landscapes into freshwater lakes.
The school
University at Buffalo: 32 labs on PI Pages, $542M a year on research, 316 research doctorates a year.
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