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)

More publications

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

More professional activities

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

More projects

Address

Civil and Environmental Engineering
James Weir

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