Hey Readers,
Let’s get into the innovations & news from the world of water this week.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the same is true of this next innovator (imitator?) - seeing the success of the Waste Shark, the Sea Bin & at a grander scale Boyan Slat’s - Ocean Cleanup, this Californian innovator has built a remote controlled floating rover that will pick up trash where directed to do so. Their focus is trash cleanup closer to the shore by working with businesses and municipalities.
While still in development out of the University of Cincinnati innovation lab - their vision is the future adoption of a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model and the implementation of a fleet management platform to support multiple vehicles. At some point they do want to get into creating a connected, autonomous fleet which will not need human intervention.
First the problem statement - Membranes are good for filtering out contaminants in water, but they end up getting clogged with the contaminants they keep out, resulting in the need for frequent cleaning or membrane replacements. Enter this innovator from Edmonton, Canada, who created a solution to this problem. First, he infused the liquids entering the tubular membranes with gas microbubbles. The bubbles bind to contaminants like a life jacket, making them float. Then, he applied a vortex to the liquid stream as it flowed through the tube.
He found the swirling water forced the floating contaminants to the centre of the tube, while the cleaner water was pushed towards the membrane wall. The result was ultra- filtered water. While initially targeted at the oil and gas sector (to clean the water they contaminate), there is a market for this in the food industry—including dairies, breweries and food processors. Who knows maybe it will be fine-tuned enough to use in creating drinking water as well.
In India, the city of Chennai aims to become the world’s largest hub for desalination with the capacity to produce 750 million litres of drinking water every day! That’s enough for 2 million people to drink, cook with, clean (but not shower)…every day!
And finally for this week we have some more good news - the Biden administration announced Tuesday that states will share $5.8 billion in federal funds for water infrastructure projects around the country.
That is it from us this Friday, until next week,
Peace!