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Beer made using recycled wastewater
CategoriesSustainable News

Beer made using recycled wastewater

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: As the global population, living standards, and economy continue to grow, along with improvements in water supply, so does the volume of wastewater. Each year, 380 billion m3 of municipal wastewater is generated globally, with very little of that ever being recycled. But, on-site wastewater can be reused to create a circular waste economy and reduce the amount of freshwater that would be wasted, and this is where Epic Cleantec comes in. 

Born out of work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, Epic was founded to use this untapped potential. Epic deploys onsite water reuse systems into the built environment, making cities more resilient, sustainable, and water secure. The company’s OneWater system captures and processes a building’s wastewater, including black and grey water. The process allows a building to recycle up to 95 per cent of its water on-site for reuse in toilet and urinal flushing, laundry, irrigation, and cooling towers.  

Epic’s approach produces three outputs: recycled water, recovered heat energy from wastewater to improve building energy efficiency, and carbon-rich soil nutrients for local agriculture and landscaping use. And through a partnership with Devil’s Canyon Brewing Co., Epic Cleantec is also turning this wastewater into beer.  

Using its technology, Epic transformed wastewater from a high-rise apartment block in San Francisco into over 2,000 gallons of recycled water, which Devil’s Canyon used to create Epic OneWater Brew – a Kölsch-style ale. 

Video source Epic Cleantec

At a time when the world is rapidly urbanising and using more and more water, it’s no wonder why there are so many ways to address water scarcity. In the archive, Springwise has spotted one company that uses wastewater to power biomanufacturing, while another is harvesting water from the air.

Written By: Anam Alam

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Creating biochar from wastewater, organic waste, and coffee cups
CategoriesSustainable News

Creating biochar from wastewater, organic waste, and coffee cups

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: The volume of edible food waste created around the world is estimated to be 1.3 billion tonnes a year, with a lot of that ending up in landfills. Once in landfill, this waste breaks down and releases CO2 into the atmosphere. While some are doing important work to reduce the amount of material that ends up in landfills, Edinburgh-based Carbogenics is going in another direction and turning this waste into a material that is useful in multiple agricultural and industrial processes.

The company produces a product called CreChar. This is a type of biochar – a carbon-rich, porous material that can be used to enhance the production of biogas from food and farming waste. While most biochar is made from virgin wood, Carbogenics’ process uses organic waste, such as wastewater screenings and difficult-to-recycle food, farm, and paper waste instead.

CreChar is made by heating biomass in the absence of oxygen. This process, known as pyrolysis, produces carbon-rich biochar alongside oil, synthetic gas (syngas), and heat. This versatile material could be a gamechanger for the biogas and wastewater treatment sectors, but it can also be used as a plant fertiliser and for soil restoration and carbon sequestration. When used in place of biochar in biogas production, for example, CreChar increases biogas yields by up to 15 per cent.

At the same time, because the carbon locked in CreChar during its production process cannot easily be broken down by microorganisms, it can be sequestered in the material for hundreds or thousands of years.

Carbogenics recently secured £1 million (around €1.2 million) in investment from Green Angel Ventures, Scottish Enterprise and Old College Capital. The funds will be used to build a production and research and development (R&D) facility in Scotland. It’s anticipated the facility will be operational by the end of Q1 in 2024.

Researchers are working on a number of projects that aim to maximise the efficiency of converting biomass to energy. In the archive, Springwise has also spotted a project at EPLF that uses food waste in the pyrolysis process, as well as a small-scale biowaste processor that turns food waste into cooking gas and compost.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

A membrane that generates electricity and cleans wastewater
CategoriesSustainable News

A membrane that generates electricity and cleans wastewater

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: According to the Centres for Disease Control, up to two billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water at home, and, at the same time, up to 770 million people live without access to electricity. The purification of water, for example from sewage or rainwater, is a high-energy process, which is why a number of innovators are working to develop renewable energy sources for purification. But what if the purification process itself could generate electricity? A team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Myongji University has recently announced that it has done just that.

The research team has developed a membrane that can simultaneously provide drinking water and generate continuous electricity from various water resources. The “sandwich-like” material includes a layer of porous membrane that can filter out most contaminants smaller than 10 nanometres. This includes microplastics and particles of heavy metals.

At the same time, water flowing over a layer of conductive polymer – perpendicular to the membrane – generates direct current due to ions moving horizontally. The membrane can be manufactured in virtually any size using a 3D printing process. This means it could potentially be adapted to any number of commercial projects.

Dr. Ji-Soo Jang, who headed up the team from KIST, highlights: “As a novel technology that can solve [the] water shortage problem and produce eco-friendly energy simultaneously, it also has great potential applications in the water quality management system and emergency power system.”

Finding solutions to the problem of water shortages has led to a number of recent innovations. Springwise has spotted a countertop water purifier, and a social enterprise working to establish affordable and reliable water infrastructure in Africa.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Sequestered CO2 turned into carbon fibre and wastewater treatment chemicals
CategoriesSustainable News

Sequestered CO2 turned into carbon fibre and wastewater treatment chemicals

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Mars Materials is a California-based startup working to commercialise technology developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Using captured carbon dioxide, the process creates acrylonitrile (ACN), which is a building block for carbon fibre. Carbon fibre is used in plastics, rubbers, and chemicals, as well as in steel and aluminum production. 

By reducing the need to create new chemicals, businesses using the material reduce their production emissions while putting captured carbon to extended use. Financially, the material could be a significant cost saver for companies as the Mars Materials team says that using the new method results in lower production costs than current systems. 

Overall, the company plans to put at least a gigatonne (one billion tonnes) of captured carbon into everyday use. When used in carbon fibre applications and as a base material for chemical manufacturing, the sequestered emissions could soon be in products at every corner shop. Having recently closed a pre-seed round of funding that raised $660,000, the company plans to begin producing product samples to test with manufacturers. The organisation’s two founders were also announced as Breakthrough Energy Fellows, recognition that comes with support for accelerating their innovation. 

Captured carbon is being used in an increasingly varied range of applications. Springwise has spotted onboard emissions being used to power ships and alternative proteins fermented with captured carbon.

Written By: Keely Khoury

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