Teaching and research sewage treatment plant (LFKW)

The Treatment Plant for Education and Research is affiliated with the Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management (ISWA) at the University of Stuttgart. The origin of the LFKW is ultimately owed to Franz Pöpel, the founder to the Institute. His demands for a new institute with associated research facilities, (in what was then the emerging university in Pfaffenwaldring) coincided with the negotiations between the State of Baden-Württemberg and the city of Stuttgart on the construction of a new municipal wastewater treatment plant in Brüsnau. Pöpel’s proposal, that this sewage treatment plant should also be used for research and education in the then very underdeveloped field of water protection, was finally realized. The developer and the land owner bore the brunt of the relatively high production costs. The operation of the treatment plant was handed over to the Technical University, represented at that time by Pöpel’s Institute. The fiscal contribution of the City of Stuttgart with maintenance and operation costs of the LFKW was defined in a contract. The LFKW is unique because it is today, at least in Europe, the only treatment plant owned by a university institute.