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Environmental Risk Engineering Lab
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A lab that develops and evaluates new drinking water treatment technologies to ensure safe tap water.
AboutAbout the lab
The pursuit of safe drinking water and new drinking water treatment technologies.
The Environmental Risk Engineering Lab researches the development and evaluation of new drinking water treatment technologies for producing safe drinking water.
Its targets include per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pesticides, substances that cause chlorine odor, and pathogenic viruses found in tap water.
Through laboratory experiments and surveys at actual water treatment plants, the lab investigates how well these substances can be removed by drinking water treatment, and also aims to make recommendations for establishing tap water quality standards.
The lab also works on treating PFAS with vacuum ultraviolet light, which has a shorter wavelength than ordinary ultraviolet light, and on evaluating treatability using the outer protein (capsid protein) of norovirus.
Key terms
- PFAS
- Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of organofluorine compounds. They are used in products such as nonstick coatings for frying pans, and they resist breakdown and tend to persist in the environment
- Ion-exchange resin
- A resin in the form of tiny beads that takes up ions dissolved in water and exchanges them for other ions, thereby removing them from the water
- Tap water quality standards
- The water quality rules that tap water must meet. A maximum concentration is set for each substance
NewsLab news
Associate Professor Shirasaki receives the River Fund Fiscal 2026 (Reiwa 8) Outstanding Achievement Award
A student receives the Student Award of the Society of Heating, Air-Conditioning and Sanitary Engineers of Japan (SHASE) Award for Encouragement
Paper accepted in Science of the Total Environment
A master's student receives the Annual Meeting Outstanding Presentation Award (Kurita Award) from the Japan Society on Water Environment
A student receives the Student Poster Presentation Award (Lion Award) from the Japan Society on Water Environment
ResearchResearch themes
To deliver safe tap water, the lab investigates how well harmful chemicals and pathogenic viruses in water can be removed by drinking water treatment. It works both on developing new treatment methods and on evaluations that lead to tap water quality standards.
*Illustrative imageProposing PFAS that are easier to remove
In place of some regulated PFAS, unregulated PFAS with slightly modified structures have begun to be used. The lab aims to clarify the relationship between how easily these substances are removed by drinking water treatment and their properties, to encourage the design and use of PFAS that are easily removed, and thereby to prevent new health risks before they arise.
*Illustrative imageRegenerating resins that capture PFAS
Ion-exchange resins can remove PFAS very efficiently, but used resins are usually discarded. The lab aims to establish methods to efficiently recover PFAS from the resin, and to develop an inexpensive treatment method in which the resin is regenerated and kept in use.
*Illustrative imageAre pesticide breakdown products safe?
The lab investigates whether the substances formed when pesticides are broken down by ozone treatment or chlorination in drinking water treatment are truly safe. Using toxicity tests developed in the lab, it observes changes in toxicity; when toxicity increases, it identifies the breakdown products responsible and recommends incorporating them into tap water quality standards.
*Illustrative imageWhat causes the chlorine odor in tap water?
The lab investigates the substances behind the chlorine odor, one of the top reasons people give for not drinking tap water as it is, using an analytical system that uses the human nose as a detector (GC/olfactometry). It aims to incorporate the causative substances into tap water quality standards and to supply tap water that has no chlorine odor even after chlorination.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Environmental Risk Engineering Lab consist of faculty members, doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students, and administrative staff.As of 2026
- ProfessorTaku Matsushita
- Associate ProfessorNobutaka Shirasaki
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Sedimentation Basin” Fmartinezcl / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Proposing PFAS that are easier to remove: “PFAS foam on river with tree” MountainFae / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Regenerating resins that capture PFAS: “Ion Exchange Resin Beads” Tomásdearg92 / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Are pesticide breakdown products safe?: “Vanhakaupunki Water Treatment Plant ozonation plant from Koskela outcrop” Antti Leppänen / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- What causes the chlorine odor in tap water?: “Filling a glass with water in a kitchen sink closeup” Shixart1985 / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Water Reclamation Engineering Lab): “Cutaway of a microfiltration module with hollow fiber membranes at a NEWater plant” Z22 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Water Quality Conversion Engineering Lab): “Aeration tank activated sludge process STP Bengaluru India” Vraj Acharya, WELL Labs / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Water Environment Conservation Engineering Lab): “Activated sludge ( )” SuSanA Secretariat / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Advanced Mobility Engineering Lab): “Tokachi-dake Skyline (Route 966) in Winter - panoramio” Kenneth Lee Sutherla… / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
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