Dr. Yang Liu’s research interests are centered in energy and nutrient recovery from municipal and industrial wastewater. She studies the basics of biofilm and granular sludge formation processes, and microbial population dynamics in environmental systems, and their applications in bioreactors for industrial wastewater treatment, and centralized and decentralized municipal wastewater treatment. Specific research activities are:

Main stream and side stream municipal wastewater nutrient reduction

Decentralized wastewater treatment and resource recovery

Bioreactor treatment of oil sands process affected water

Bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation

Fate and transport of bio-colloids in porous media