Transcript for Hong Liu

My name is Hong Liu.

I'm assistant professor at

Oregon State University.

I'm currently working on microbial fused cell

based technologies: trying to recover

energy from waste water.

The microbial fused cell technology

I'm working on is basically using bacteria

to harvest bactericide as a catalyst

to help to break down organic material

in waste water and generate energy from it.

I think we try to

recover energy from waste water because

water and energy are probably the most

important, basic fundamental resources

of modern civilization.

So it affects everybody, actually.

So, the current water infrastructure

consumes huge amounts of energy.

So each day we need huge amounts of energy to treat waste water.

I think we try to say how we can make

the waste water treatment process

more energy sustainable.

According to UNDP,

United Nations Development Programme, I think back to 2005,

95% of sewage in developing countries

discharge to water body without any treatment.

So I think if we can make the whole

waste water treating process much cheaper

we may have the developing countries

to, you know, make the, you know,

have more waste water treatment facilities.

And have them to have clean water

and have more energy to do the work.