Waste water treatment

All domestic and sanitary wastewater generated on the TIIAME NRU campus is discharged into the municipal sewer system and treated at the Salar Wastewater Treatment Plant in Tashkent. The sewer lines serving teaching blocks, student residences, laboratories, kitchens and administrative facilities are designed in accordance with SHNQ 2.04.01-22, QMQ 2.04.03-19, Law O‘RQ-784 and Decree VMQ-11. As a result, no untreated effluent is released directly from the campus into the environment.

At the Salar plant, wastewater first undergoes mechanical treatment: screens remove coarse solids, grit chambers settle mineral particles, and primary clarifiers separate suspended matter. It then passes through biological reactors—such as aeration tanks and secondary clarifiers—where organic pollutants are biologically degraded. In the final stage, the effluent is brought into compliance with environmental and sanitary standards and discharged into the Bozsuv–Salor–Chirchiq canal system, where it is reused for irrigation in agriculture. In this way, the university is part of a wider regional loop that returns treated water back into productive use.

The university is not just a passive user of this system; it also contributes technological solutions. Researchers at TIIAME have developed an electro-hydraulic disinfection unit and tested compact “NEUTRALIZE” multi-stage treatment modules (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDHTKPjPsU). The electro-hydraulic device uses high-voltage pulsed discharges to inactivate harmful microorganisms in wastewater; laboratory trials have shown high removal efficiency for bacterial indicators with comparatively low energy consumption. The NEUTRALIZE module combines membrane filtration, UV disinfection and adsorption, producing clear, disinfected water suitable for technical and sanitary purposes. In 2024, these modules were piloted at selected laboratory and workshop points on campus.

In addition, a mobile melioration laboratory is used to collect and analyse wastewater samples at different points in the internal network, providing an independent check on the quality of effluent sent to the Salar plant. For students, this creates a direct link between theoretical lectures on treatment processes and real measurements from operating systems.

In the coming years, the university intends to expand pilot applications of electro-hydraulic disinfection and NEUTRALIZE modules in small decentralised treatment units—for example, at specific laboratory blocks or sports facilities—and to integrate these trials into master’s and PhD research projects.