Research on Water Pollution Prevention and Aquatic Ecosystem Protection: Emerging Contaminant Removal, Green Water Treatment and Resource Recovery
Sustainable Development Goals
Content
NTHU Research on Water Pollution Prevention and Aquatic Ecosystem Protection Technologies: Emerging Contaminant Removal, Green Water Treatment and Water Resource Recovery
THE Impact Rankings 14.3.4 — Technologies Towards Aquatic Ecosystem Damage Prevention (Direct Work)
Relevant SDGs: SDG 14 Life Below Water, SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, and SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
Research scope: Pollution prevention technologies, contaminant risk assessment, water recovery, and watershed monitoring conducted in 2025
1. Research Approach: Protecting Aquatic Ecosystems Through Pollution Prevention and Green Technologies
National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) conducts interdisciplinary research on water pollution prevention, sustainable water management, and aquatic ecosystem protection.
Domestic wastewater, industrial effluents, and land-based contaminants can enter rivers, estuaries, coastal waters, and marine environments. Certain emerging contaminants are difficult to remove through conventional treatment processes, creating a need for more effective and resource-efficient water treatment technologies.
Research teams associated with NTHU's College of Nuclear Science investigate photoelectrochemical systems, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), advanced reduction processes (ARPs), and solar-driven photothermal distillation.
Other NTHU research activities address the degradation of persistent organic pollutants, water quality analysis, sediment contamination and toxicity assessment, and artificial intelligence-based river litter detection.
Together, these research directions contribute to the scientific and technological foundation for reducing potential damage to aquatic ecosystems through contaminant treatment, environmental risk identification, and water resource recovery.
2. Photoelectrochemical Systems for Emerging Contaminant Removal
2.1 Technology Development
NTHU researchers investigate photoelectrochemical systems as potential approaches to water purification and contaminant removal.
These technologies combine light energy and electrochemical reactions to promote chemical transformation or degradation of contaminants under controlled conditions.
Research topics include treatment efficiency, reaction mechanisms, material properties, and the environmental implications of treatment processes.
2.2 Relevance to Aquatic Ecosystem Protection
Appropriate treatment of contaminated water before discharge may help reduce the exposure of aquatic organisms to potentially harmful substances.
Photoelectrochemical processes therefore offer possible technological pathways for addressing selected emerging contaminants in wastewater and other water treatment applications.
However, the materials currently available do not provide sufficiently documented treatment capacities, contaminant removal efficiencies, energy consumption figures, or marine industry field trials for these specific research activities.
Accordingly, this work is presented as technology research and development rather than verified commercial deployment.
3. Advanced Oxidation and Reduction Processes and Persistent Pollutant Degradation
3.1 Advanced Oxidation Processes
NTHU research teams explore advanced oxidation processes to degrade emerging contaminants in water.
Research focuses on contaminant transformation, reaction efficiency, degradation mechanisms, and the characteristics of resulting chemical products.
These studies contribute to the development of approaches for controlling pollution before contaminants enter natural aquatic environments.
3.2 Advanced Reduction Processes
NTHU researchers also investigate advanced reduction processes, which provide alternative chemical pathways for transforming selected water contaminants.
The comparison of oxidation and reduction mechanisms can support the evaluation of treatment technologies under different chemical conditions.
3.3 Transformation Products and Environmental Risks
Contaminant removal should not be assessed solely by reductions in the concentration of the original compound. Chemical transformation products may also require evaluation because their environmental properties and potential toxicity can differ from those of the parent contaminant.
NTHU's research directions therefore include the investigation of degradation mechanisms and potential environmental risks associated with transformation products.
This approach supports the development of water treatment methods that consider both contaminant removal and environmental safety.
3.4 Ozone and Ultraviolet Treatment of Persistent Organic Pollutants
A separate NTHU research team led by Professor Kuo-Chu Hwang investigates the use of ozone and ultraviolet photochemical reactions to degrade persistent organic pollutants.
This work provides an additional example of research on pollutant degradation and environmental pollution prevention.
It is presented separately from the College of Nuclear Science research areas because the available evidence does not establish that these activities belong to the same research project.
Research image: Professor Kuo-Chu Hwang's research on ozone and ultraviolet pollutant degradation
Supporting source: NTHU official research news
This example is included as supporting background research and is not counted as a newly completed 2025 research outcome without year-specific evidence.
4. Solar-Driven Photothermal Distillation for Water Recovery
4.1 Solar-Powered Water Treatment
NTHU research teams also explore solar-driven photothermal distillation as a method of recovering clean water.
This approach uses solar energy to generate heat, facilitating water evaporation and subsequent condensation.
The research connects solar energy utilization with water recovery and investigates its potential to reduce reliance on external energy sources in selected water treatment applications.
4.2 Resource Recovery and Environmental Protection
Photothermal distillation may provide opportunities for clean water recovery and reuse, depending on the characteristics of the source water and system design.
Its practical benefits must be assessed in relation to water production efficiency, energy requirements, residual waste management, operating conditions, and maintenance.
Specific production rates, energy consumption data, and marine industry field applications have not yet been documented in the evidence provided for this webpage.
The technology is therefore described as an ongoing research area with potential water resource management applications.
5. Touqian River Watershed: Documented Pollution Monitoring and Environmental Risk Research in 2025
Alongside water treatment technology development, NTHU implements the Ministry of Education-supported University Social Responsibility (USR) project, Deep Integration of Technology and Communities: Protecting the Touqian River Through Evidence-Based Research and Environmental Literacy.
The project combines water quality monitoring, sediment contamination and toxicity research, and AI-based river litter recognition.
Its 2025 implementation report documents field-based research and technology development within the Touqian River watershed.
5.1 Water Quality Monitoring
The 2025 project reported:
- Eight water quality sampling sites across the watershed.
- Fifteen sampling occasions during the reporting year.
- Twelve water quality parameters, expanded from eight originally planned parameters, including indicators related to heavy metals and suspended solids.
- Integration of monitoring information with a rapid water quality analysis platform.
These activities demonstrate direct field sampling and environmental data analysis in a real watershed setting.
5.2 Sediment Pollution and Toxicity Assessment
The project also examines sediment contamination and potential toxicity as complementary indicators of aquatic environmental risk.
Sediment research extends environmental assessment beyond water-column measurements and contributes to a broader understanding of watershed pollution.
However, detecting contamination or assessing potential toxicity does not itself demonstrate that pollutants have been removed or that habitats have been restored.
5.3 AI-Based River Litter Recognition
In 2025, the project developed an AI-based river litter image recognition system with the following documented outcomes:
- 77,886 collected images.
- 5,769 annotated images.
- 15 litter categories.
- Model performance of mAP50 = 0.945.
This system provides a technological foundation for identifying river litter and supporting environmental inspection and pollution management.
Its recognition accuracy is a measure of model performance, not a direct measure of litter reduction in rivers or oceans.
5.4 Complementarity With Water Treatment Research
The Touqian River project primarily addresses pollution monitoring, environmental risk assessment, and information analysis. Photoelectrochemical processes, advanced oxidation and reduction, and photothermal distillation focus on contaminant treatment or water recovery.
These areas provide complementary research contributions to aquatic ecosystem protection.
However, the available records do not demonstrate that the specific water treatment systems described in this webpage have already been installed or tested within the Touqian River project.
2025 primary evidence:
Ministry of Education USR Project — 2025 Implementation Report
6. Relevance to Marine Industry Pollution Prevention
THE Impact Rankings indicator 14.3.4 concerns universities' direct involvement in research and technologies intended to help marine industries prevent or reduce damage to aquatic ecosystems.
NTHU's research contributes in two related areas.
First, its investigations of photoelectrochemical systems, advanced oxidation and reduction processes, and photothermal distillation provide potential technological approaches to contaminant removal and water resource recovery.
Second, the Touqian River USR project develops practical watershed monitoring and environmental risk identification capabilities through field sampling, sediment analysis, toxicity research, and AI-based litter detection.
Since land-based pollutants and river litter can eventually reach estuaries and coastal environments, these research capabilities have potential relevance to aquatic and marine ecosystem protection.
Nevertheless, applications involving marine industries or aquaculture must consider saline conditions, contaminant composition, treatment scale, environmental requirements, and site-specific operational factors.
The available evidence does not establish that these particular water treatment technologies have been jointly tested with identified marine industries or aquaculture operators. Nor does it document measurable reductions in marine pollution resulting from their deployment.
NTHU therefore presents this work as direct research on water pollution prevention technologies and field-based watershed environmental assessment, without claiming verified marine industry implementation or technology transfer.
7. Research Outputs and Contributions to Aquatic Ecosystem Protection
NTHU's relevant research activities can be organized into three areas.
Pollution treatment technology development
Photoelectrochemical systems, advanced oxidation and reduction processes, persistent organic pollutant degradation, and photothermal distillation provide research pathways for emerging contaminant removal and clean water recovery.
Field-based watershed monitoring
The 2025 Touqian River project conducted water quality sampling at eight sites, with fifteen sampling occasions and twelve analytical parameters, complemented by sediment contamination and toxicity research.
Environmental risk identification technologies
AI-based river litter recognition and rapid water quality analysis support the identification and assessment of environmental problems.
Together, these activities demonstrate interdisciplinary research capacity extending from laboratory-based treatment technologies to environmental monitoring and digital pollution detection.
The Touqian River outcomes are supported by identifiable 2025 implementation data. Other technology research areas are described according to the research information available, without attributing unverified performance figures or implementation outcomes to the 2025 reporting year.
8. Future Development and Continuous Improvement
NTHU will continue to advance research on emerging contaminant treatment, environmental risk assessment, watershed monitoring, and sustainable water resource management.
Further work may include the collection of comparable performance data on contaminant degradation, treatment by-products, toxicity, energy consumption, and water recovery.
Collaboration with aquaculture operators, coastal industries, or wastewater treatment facilities would provide opportunities to evaluate the suitability of these technologies under real operational conditions.
By combining pollution prevention research, field-based environmental monitoring, and environmental data analysis, NTHU contributes scientific and technological knowledge toward reducing potential damage to freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems.
These activities support SDG 14, SDG 6, and SDG 12.
Supporting Evidence
- NTHU College of Nuclear Science: Research information submitted for indicator 14.3.4, covering photoelectrochemical systems, advanced oxidation and reduction processes, and solar-driven photothermal distillation.
- NTHU official research news: Professor Kuo-Chu Hwang's pollutant degradation research.
- Ministry of Education USR Project: 2025 Implementation Report on the Touqian River.