Dear Readers,
This week we have the usual mix-bag of innovations and a whole lot of news from the world of water. As always do share your thoughts, like, share and subscribe!
Fish Scales to clean up water pollutants
Kids do the darnedest things! This high school student in California found that components of fish scales can absorb heavy metals and she developed a novel biosorbent from upcycling fish scale waste to extract heavy metals and microplastics from water in the environment. While early days, her already cost-effective solution is envisioned for use at water resource recovery facilities to support reclaiming polluted water, repurposing waste, and preventing harmful heavy metal impacts. Unsurprisingly she is a finalist for the Children’s Climate Prize - an international prize annually awarded to young people who have made extraordinary efforts for the climate and environment
Uniquely hydrophilic (“water-loving”) polymers, to clean wastewater
As we have said in the past water filtration technology for industrial use cases have been stymied by a problem called “membrane fouling,” which means the pores of the filter get so clogged up so frequently that it takes too much time to clean them. Now a wastewater reprocessing startup has developed a chemically engineered membrane water filtration technology to help industrial companies and large farms recycle wastewater.
Their patented filtration technology came out of a research lab at Tufts University. Why this works better than others is that instead of stopping pollutants from going through like most sponge based filters, their membrane’s pores act as sort of vacuums for the water, pulling the water molecules out of the oils. They go on to say that in many cases — such as in manure digestate treatment, meat and poultry treatment, dairy waste water, and bioprocessing applications — the material that is filtered out with can be resold as fertilizer or feedstocks, thereby creating a new revenue stream.
In Other News
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about the invasion in Ukraine. What’s more, with the Ukrainians fighting back harder than imagined, Russians troops are moving to more questionable tactics like destroying water systems (that had no strategic value in the war effort) in the towns as they leave. Anyone else doubt the value of water, go talk to these Ukrainians.
Seven (7) weeks after the water issues came to a head in Jackson, Mississippi, the boil water notice has been lifted (which means the city officials feel the water is safe enough to drink). It’s a different matter that the residents do not feel that way.
As recently as last week we wrote about toxic levels of arsenic in the water in NYC, well now the lab that did the tests has come out retracting their findings, with city officials saying the lab is the one that introduced the arsenic into the samples to begin with! Now why are we not relieved?
In some better news, a Saudi-based provider of logistics and transportation services, has started trial commissioning of the first floating desalination plant. What will they do next?
Maybe a buoy that can purify 350 million gallons of water a year?
If you have the time, do read this article about traditional enemies Environmentalists and Shepherds working together in Jordan to build back the green cover, feed their flock and replenish the groundwaters!
Here is this week’s water quality report for those int he five boroughs of NYC from our friends at Billion Oyster project - CWQT Report.
A city on British Columbia, Canada is getting $62 million from the state government to bolster its drinking water system against floods, wildfires and other climate-related disasters and cater to their residents.
And to wrap up this week, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded more than $1.1 billion in capitalization grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to 18 states for water infrastructure improvements.
That’s it for this week,
‘Til next Friday,
Stay hydrated