The Department of Environmental Biotechnology is a part of the Faculty of Energy and Environmental Engineering at the Silesian University of Technology. As an independent research unit, the Department of Environmental Biotechnology was founded in 1998, as a result of transformation of the Division of Environmental Biotechnology.

Nowadays it is one of the leading research and educational centers in the field of environmental biotechnology in Poland. The numerous research and educational activities and co-operations with local authorities and industry, reflect the knowledge and professional experience of the scientists in the Department. The research areas cover all aspects of environmental biotechnology, and include water and wastewater treatment, soil bioremediation, ecotoxicology and environmental monitoring. In case of recalcitrant organics advanced oxidation technologies assist biological removal.

The Department of Environmental Biotechnology brings together theoretical and applied research in environmental sciences, especially in biotechnology merged with other processes in co-treatment techniques and in eco-toxicology.

The department intends to develop the research where the knowledge about biotechnology will be connected with membrane techniques and advanced oxidation processes as well as adsorption processes. This research will facilitate as follows:

• the profound treatment of re-used water, liquid waste and wastewater as landfill leachates, post-fermentation effluents, industrial wastewater from pharmaceutics, preservation products and food production,
• as well as soil and groundwater bioremediation using permeable biobarriers.

The main themes of research focus on the wide range of emerging biological and chemical threats in water management. Therefore they are addressed to the removal of biotoxins, endocrine disrupting chemicals, traces of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, pesticides metabolites, polyciclic aromatic hydrocarbons metabolites and toxic intermediate products of chemical oxidation processes from wastewater, re-used water, soil and groundwater.

The above-described research can not be implemented without the eco-toxicological risk assessment. Therefore parallel research in the field of eco-toxicological risk assessment are performed. The scope of this research includes biodegradation of the wide range of pollutants e.g. xenobiotics as well as eco-toxicological risk assessment of pollutants present in water and wastewater and also their metabolites and intermediate products of chemical oxidation.

Moreover, in the Department typical research in the field of biotechnology are performed concerning biological nutrient removal, high ammonia nitrogen concentrations biological removal, microbial activity assessment, anaerobic processes development etc.