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.