Dr Christine Switzer
Lecturer
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Publications
- Smouldering to treat PFAS in sewage sludge
- Fournie T, Rashwan T L, Switzer C, Gerhard J I
- Waste management Vol 164, pp. 219-227 (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2023.04.008
- Exploring PCDD/Fs and potentially toxic elements in sewage sludge during smouldering treatment
- Fournie T, Rashwan TL, Switzer C, Grant GP, Gerhard JI
- Journal of Environmental Management Vol 317 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115384
- A framework to assess the impact of flooding on the release of microplastics from waste management facilities
- Ponti Marta G, Allen Deonie, White Christopher J, Bertram Doug, Switzer Christine
- Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances Vol 7 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hazadv.2022.100105
- Phosphorus recovery and reuse potential from smouldered sewage sludge ash
- Fournie T, Rashwan TL, Switzer C, Gerhard JI
- Waste Management Vol 137, pp. 241-252 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2021.11.001
- USEPA LEAF methods for characterizing phosphorus and potentially toxic elements in raw and thermally treated sewage sludge
- Fournie T, Switzer C, Gerhard JI
- Chemosphere Vol 275 (2021)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130081
- Enhancing student transitions into engineering from underrepresented backgrounds
- Switzer Christine, Nicol Emma, Bertram Douglas, Kenny Michael, Murray Michael, Ferguson Neil
- 13th Annual Enhancement Themes Conference (2016)
Teaching
Current Teaching: Contaminated Land, Pollution & Rehabilitation of Degraded Ecosystems, Chemistry & Materials Science
Past Teaching: Statistics & Model Analysis, Water & Wastewater Treatment Design
Research interests
My research interests lie in the areas of contaminant fate, transport, and remediation. I am particularly interested in aggressive remediation technologies for contaminated soils and emerging contaminants in the environment such as fire retardants and other micropollutants.
Professional activities
- Training day on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control for delegates from the Hebei Provincial Government
- Speaker
- 5/12/2017
- Fire Technology (Journal)
- Peer reviewer
- 1/7/2011
- Environmental Science and Technology (Journal)
- Peer reviewer
- 1/7/2011
- Institute of Physics Combustion Physics Group (Sept 2010)
- Invited speaker
- 9/2010
- ConSoil 2008
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 9/2008
Projects
- Enhancing Equality & Diversity in the Graduate Apprenticeship (Civil & Environmental Engineering) cohorts at the University of Strathclyde
- Beattie, Stewart (Principal Investigator) Switzer, Christine (Principal Investigator) Kremer, Yannick (Principal Investigator) Murray, Michael (Principal Investigator)
- Internal QAA Resilient Learning Communities (2020-2023) award £1000
- 01-Jan-2023 - 01-Jan-2023
- Development of Novel Treatments for Carbon-based radioactive wastes
- Renshaw, Joanna (Principal Investigator) Lunn, Rebecca (Co-investigator) Switzer, Christine (Co-investigator)
- "The nuclear energy and weapons programmes of the past 70 years have created a legacy of waste and contamination around the world. Amongst the very diverse and complicated wastes arising from these programmes are a range of orphan wastes. These are wastes which are not suitable for treatment in existing processing plants and for which there is no currently accepted treatment option.
This project will determine the feasibility of a wholly new approach to treatment of orphan radioactive wastes. The overarching longer-term research vision is for a three-stage waste treatment process. First, smouldering the waste (in the same way that coal smoulders in a fire) to burn the carbon and produce a small volume of stable radioactive ash that can be encapsulated (generally in cement) and placed into a container (comprised of steel or concrete) for future geological disposal. Second, capturing safely the radioactive emissions that are released by the smouldering process. These are in the form of microscopic particles of radionuclides and carbon dioxide gas that contains the radioactive element, Carbon 14. This capture will make use of similar technologies to those being explored to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to tackle climate change. Bacteria will be used to stimulate the production of carbonate and/or phosphate minerals, removing the radioactivity from the gases and capturing them into a stable mineral (i.e. into a rock) . Finally, this process of capturing the radioactivity into a mineral will be performed as part of the encapsulation process either for the radioactive ash (prior to placing it in a container) or for other radioactive wastes, so as to reduce the final volume of radioactive material that requires disposal.
In order for any treatment process of orphan wastes to be accepted by the UK regulatory authorities, it is critical that no radioactive gases are emitted. Hence, this research project will focus on demonstrating the feasibility of capturing (1) 14C as a stable carbonate and (2) other particulate radioactive emissions into stable phosphate minerals. The project will focus on demonstrating feasibility for a single wasteform, graphite, which is the largest volume orphan waste. If feasibility can be demonstrated, other research projects will follow to explore the smouldering process and the use of the carbonate and phosphate minerals for encapsulation of the radioactive ashes, created by the smouldering process." - 01-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2019
- Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP - University of Strathclyde) | Swift, Paul
- El Mountassir, Grainne (Principal Investigator) Switzer, Christine (Co-investigator) Swift, Paul (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2016 - 01-Jan-2019
- TERRE: Training Engineers and Researchers to Rethink geotechnical Engineering for a low carbon future (H2020 ETN)
- Tarantino, Alessandro (Principal Investigator) El Mountassir, Grainne (Co-investigator) Ferguson, Neil (Co-investigator) Knapp, Charles (Co-investigator) Lunn, Rebecca (Co-investigator) Switzer, Christine (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2015 - 31-Jan-2019
- Mechanistic modelling of smouldering remediation to evaluate its effects on soil properties and interactions with groundwater
- Switzer, Christine (Principal Investigator) Corson, Lindsey (Principal Investigator) Pritchard, David (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2015 - 16-Jan-2016
- ENTICE - ENhancing Transitions In Civil Engineering (HEA Student Transitions)
- Ferguson, Neil (Principal Investigator) Bertram, Doug (Co-investigator) Kenny, Michael (Co-investigator) Murray, Michael (Co-investigator) Switzer, Christine (Co-investigator)
- 11-Jan-2015 - 30-Jan-2015
Address
Civil and Environmental Engineering
James Weir