Hey Readers,
We have some stuff to go through this week, so without any more fanfare let’s get to it.
Cow Pats to solve desalination woes
First off, scientists at Northeastern University (NU) in Boston, USA have found a novel source for desalination membranes - cow manure. Using intense heat, they have converted the manure to dry carbon, which is in turn made into a foam that will sieve out salt and other impurities in a desalination process.
You may be wondering why manure? - well, so long as dairy and livestock are an integral part of rural life around the world, it is an inexpensive source of the base carbon needed to making desalination filters, which these researchers feel will be important to bringing down the overall cost of desalination as a primary water cleaning method in the future.
Tap water naturally stops microplastics from being released
This next innovation comes from Mother Earth herself! A team of scientists from Dublin, Ireland, found that tap water contains trace elements and minerals, which prevent plastics from degrading in the water and releasing microplastics. More specifically they found that many items used everyday in the kitchen made of plastic, if used in conjunction with tap water over a longer period of time, develop a protective skin that prevents the release of microplastics entirely!
The current prevalent thinking is that given we use plastic in our kitchens, microscopic amounts of it break off and get washed out into our major water bodies as ‘microplastics’. However this set of researchers have shown that the trace elements and minerals in non-pure i.e. regular tap water coat the plastic and prevent any kind of degradation and so the product becomes microplastic-free. Having learnt this fact, they know how to create shield layers to apply to plastics to stop microplastics from dissipating at all.
Electro-coagulation to remove microbes
In keeping with methods of contamination removal, this next idea comes from the fine minds at Texas A&M University. They found a cheaper, more effective method to coagulation as a purification technique. For the uninitiated, coagulation is the chemical process of adding one set of chemicals into water to trigger the clumping of particles and microbes within untreated water. These aggregates can then be removed when they settle as sediments. (think how when you mix oil with water and then leave it alone, the oil and water separate out)
Due to the need to use chemicals and the fact that transporting and using these acidic chemicals can be complicated and expensive, the team worked on a less expensive solution - electrolysis. They inserted iron electrodes in a sample of untreated water laden with viruses and then passed electrical currents through the circuit. The anode oxidized, releasing iron ions into the solution which combined with dissolved oxygen to produce hydroxyl radicals and also iron-rich precipitates. In the process, they found that as the iron precipitated, the virus attached to these clumps to form bigger aggregates, which could be easily removed from the water. The above image shows the bacteria in the experiment coagulating in the right side image
Cheap scalable chlorine water purification for the developing world
Chlorine for water purification is not a new idea, but doing it at scale and providing it to those in need has continued to be the kind of logistical nightmare only Amazon could solve (if only, the third world were Prime members!). Not to be deterred, a non-profit out of Geneva has been working and building cheap innovative technologies and solutions for the same. Their technology called WATA, allows users to use or build a simple and robust range of devices to autonomously produce active chlorine to treat water.
It works by running an electric current through salt water, the electricity separates the salt in the water into sodium and chlorine. One litre of the resulting active chlorine can treat 3,300 litres of drinking water. At this time around 20 prototypes have been sent to different countries including Brazil, Cameroon, Nepal and Tanzania. Kudos!
Ultrasound for preventing HABs
We have talked in the past about the various problems that come from algae blooms on open water bodies. These harmful algal blooms (HABs) need to be controlled and possibility for it growing needs to be monitored to avoid it happening in the first place. Prevention is better than a cure. Enter this innovator who has developed an ultrasound sensor to identify the potential growth of these HABs.
This sensor monitors Phosphate (PO4) in real-time, at different water depths, using lab-on-chip technology. Why PO4? - Phosphate (PO4) flows into surface water where it is the fuel that helps growth of harmful algae blooms (HABs). Paired with their software, they can track parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and different types of algae.
US Army removing PFAS at scale
While we have been watching and tracking methods to clean PFAS (forever chemicals) from water bodies, this week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filed a patent application detailing a mobile, large-scale filtration system that removes PFAS chemicals from groundwater. The PFAS Effluent Treatment System (PETS) treats 80,000 gallons of PFAS contaminated water to produce about 43,000 gallons of treated water over 68 hours.
The trailer-mounted PETS is pump-powered by an onboard generator. It uses commercially available ion-exchange resin, cartridge filter for sediment removal, and granular activated carbon filters to remove contaminants. The PETS is up to 90 times less expensive over a five-year period than traditional cleanup efforts.
In Other News
First up is a detailed write-up from the NY Times on how big chemical companies Dupont & Chemours are actively working to avoid PFAS fines. Read more and reach out to your local legislator!
Also, in not-so-good news, Homeland Security says that hackers targeted US water and wastewater systems as recently as this last August. And, those attacks have continued through the year.
In a bigger sign of things to come, research shows that in the US there are 635 planned “water reuse” projects, and there are an estimated 300 more in operation. While a great new development, still a long way from the concepts from Dune! now showing on HBO Max.
In Canada, the Gordon Foundation which is dedicated to protecting the country’s water bodies has set up an open source water monitoring dashboard called the Great Lakes DataStream, a new online platform for sharing water quality data from across Ontario and Quebec. This platform built in collaboration with regional monitoring networks, has 7 million data points ranging from temperature & pH to dissolved oxygen and other chemical contaminants. All of this info will let local areas know the health of the water, and if any remediation work is needed. Onward & Upward!
With the drought continuing in the West, everyone must do their part. In the city of San Francisco, a brewery has launched a new water recycling system which is capable of saving the city 20 million gallons of water per year. While it won’t go into the beer itself, the recycled water will be used for things like rinsing bottles and cleaning equipment. Not yet toilet-to-tap, but a big step in the right direction.
Another big piece of good news comes from Indian engineering and construction giant L&T. In re-upping their ESG goals before COP26, they have said that amongst other things, they will be water neutral by 2035. Currently in the 400,000 people storing company, only 57 per cent of wastewater is recycled and reused, so slowly inching along in the right direction.
Finally (for this week anyway), we have written in the past about how the Mekong Delta is drying up due to hydel projects and dams built by the Chinese and other nations sharing the water source. All of this puts a real strain on the poorer nations in the area. Enter Japan who are loaning Cambodia $58 million to expand clean water supply capacity. This money will help fund a 60,000 m3/day capacity water treatment facility, a clean water factory and distribution pipes which will cover 200 kilometers.
That is it for this week folks,
‘Til next Friday, Peace