It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, February 22, 2024
New biotechnology to remove phosphorus from wastewater given funding boost
A novel bio-based process able to remove and recover phosphorus from wastewater – developed by Cranfield University experts – has won almost half a million pounds of funding from OFWAT.
A novel bio-based process able to remove and recover phosphorus from wastewater – developed by Cranfield University experts – has won almost half a million pounds of funding from OFWAT.
The Water Discovery Challenge – which aims to accelerate the discovery, development and adoption of promising new innovations for the water sector – will see 10 innovators share up to £4.5 million to solve some of the biggest challenges facing the water sector.
Cranfield University – alongside US-based biotechnology company Microvi – has developed a new technology which uses bacteria to remove phosphorus from water without the need for coagulants.
Currently the water industry uses metal-based coagulants to remove phosphorus but the new bio-mineral phosphorus removal (BMPR) process does not use them, and it also helps to recover nutrients as re-usable salts. The long-term goal of the research is to commercialise the technology to save money, decrease environmental impacts of nutrient management whilst meeting environmental goals.
The bacteria used in new bio-mineral phosphorus removal (BMPR) process doesn’t currently exist in wastewater systems, but Microvi has developed engineered biocatalysts which enables the selected bacteria stay within the wastewater so that it can be effectively introduced.
Phosphorus is both a pollutant and a resource, but using coagulants to remove it from wastewater can be expensive as well as problematic because of supply chain risks, while it also introduces additional chemicals into the water cycle. Initial tests completed at Cranfield university using the BMPR technology shows a 96% removal of phosphorus from wastewater from a range of initial concentrations from 4 to 80 mg/L. This is the same result as if using traditional coagulants.
Ana Soares, Professor of Biotechnology Engineering at Cranfield University, said: “Our approach not only addresses the pressing issue of phosphorus pollution in wastewater but also offers a sustainable solution by exploiting the amazing beneficial potential of bacteria without relying on traditional coagulants and enables to recover a finite resource that is phosphorus.
“This funding will enable us to accelerate the commercialisation of our technology, ultimately benefiting both the water industry and the environment.”
Helen Campbell, Senior Director for Sector Performance at Ofwat said: “This competition was about reaching new innovators from outside the sector with different approaches and new ideas, and that’s exactly what the winners announced today are doing.
“The products and ideas recognised in this cross-sector challenge will equip water companies to better face challenges of the future – including achieving sustainability goals and meeting net zero targets – all while providing the highest-quality water for consumers.”
Ajay Nair, Global Director of Commercial and Technical Strategy at Microvi, highlighted the significance of the technology: "Microvi is delighted to offer a novel biological solution for phosphorus removal from wastewater, particularly one that can provide a secondary value by producing biostruvite, which could be reused in fertilisers. Microvi continues to push forward, developing solutions for the water and wastewater industry by exploiting the best microorganisms for reduction of nutrients and contaminants.”
New electrochemical system enables efficient metal recovery from industrial wastewater
(A) CU2+ CONCENTRATION CHANGE UNDER DIFFERENT ELECTRODEPOSITION BATCHES, (B) IMAGE OF CU RECOVERED FROM TE&SF ELECTRODEPOSITION, (C) ELECTRIC ENERGY AND SPECIFIC ENERGY CONSUMPTION DURING ELECTRODEPOSITION, AND (D) ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF THE ENTIRE PROCESS.
A research team at Tsinghua University led by Professor Huijuan Liu has developed a new electrochemical system that promises to revolutionize metal recovery from industrial wastewater. The research was published in Engineering.
Industrial wastewater poses significant environmental hazards due to heavy metal pollution. Current methods for metal recovery, such as electrodeposition, suffer from interfacial ion transport limitations, resulting in slow and low-quality recovery. In their study, the team proposed a novel approach that integrates a transient electric field (TE) and swirling flow (SF) to improve mass transfer and promote interfacial ion transport simultaneously.
The research team explored the effects of different operating conditions, including operation mode, transient frequency, and flow rate, on metal recovery. They discovered that the optimal conditions for rapid and efficient sequential recovery of copper in TE&SF mode were achieved with low and high electric levels of 0 and 4 V, a 50% duty cycle, a 1 kHz frequency, and a 400 L/h flow rate. The kinetic coefficients of TE&SF electrodeposition were found to be 3.5−4.3 times and 1.37−1.97 times that of single TE and SF electrodeposition, respectively.
To gain insights into the process, the team simulated the deposition process under TE and SF conditions. The results confirmed the efficient concurrence of interfacial ion transport and charge transfer, leading to rapid and high-quality metal recovery. The combined deposition strategy demonstrates not only effective metal pollution reduction but also promotes resource recycling.
This innovative approach overcomes the limitations of interfacial ion transport in conventional electrodeposition methods. By coupling a transient electric field with turbulent flow, the team successfully improves bulk and interfacial ion transport, thus enhancing the reaction kinetics. The synergy of the transient electric field and swirling flow achieves not only rapid metal recovery but also deposits with homogeneous compositions and uniform morphologies.
Furthermore, the system shows wide applicability in recovering metals with redox potentials higher than those of hydrogen evolution and water reduction. This capability allows for the high-value recovery of precious and heavy metals, making it a valuable asset for industries dealing with metal waste.
The research conducted by Professor Huijuan Liu and her team provides new insights into efficient metal recovery from industrial wastewater. Their findings open up possibilities for environmentally friendly and resource-efficient metal recycling processes, contributing to the reduction of pollution and the preservation of valuable resources.
The paper “Efficient Metal Recovery from Industrial Wastewater: Potential Oscillation and Turbulence Mode for Electrochemical System ” authored by Li Chen, Gong Zhang, Huijuan Liu, Shiyu Miao, Qingbai Chen, Huachun Lan, Jiuhui Qu. Full text of the open access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2023.12.002. For more information about the Engineering, follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/EngineeringJrnl) & like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EngineeringJrnl).
About Engineering:
Engineering (ISSN: 2095-8099 IF:12.8) is an international open-access journal that was launched by the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 2015. Its aims are to provide a high-level platform where cutting-edge advancements in engineering R&D, current major research outputs, and key achievements can be disseminated and shared; to report progress in engineering science, discuss hot topics, areas of interest, challenges, and prospects in engineering development, and consider human and environmental well-being and ethics in engineering; to encourage engineering breakthroughs and innovations that are of profound economic and social importance, enabling them to reach advanced international standards and to become a new productive force, and thereby changing the world, benefiting humanity, and creating a new future.
CREDIT: BILL NICHOLLS, CC BY-SA 2.0 VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Scientists at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) have developed a robust method for detecting whether a toxic chemical used in car tyres is present in rivers, streams and lakes, and measuring its concentrations.
Tyre wear is one of the largest sources of microplastics in rivers, potentially posing a significant risk to wildlife that ingest the particles. Toxic chemicals present in these microplastics have already been linked to the deaths of salmon in the United States and trout in Canada.
The UKCEH project team chose 6PPD, a commonly-used additive in the manufacture of car tyres to prevent degradation of rubber, as the focus for their research. It was carried out on behalf of Defra as part of a wider project to develop a way of detecting and quantifying microplastics in river water and sediment.
UKCEH pollution scientist Dr Richard Cross explains: “From a scientific perspective, car tyres are a challenging material to investigate. Every tyre manufacturer uses a different formulation and can be quite closely guarded secrets.
“However, a handful of additives are used in the production of almost all vehicle tyres. These have relatively consistent concentrations and aren’t really used in anything except tyres. One of those is 6PPD and that’s why we decided to use it as the ‘red flag’ that told us tyre rubber was in our sample.”
As the additive degrades in the environment reacting with ozone, it transforms into a toxic compound called 6PPD-quinone, which can become dangerous to wildlife when it runs off into a water course during rainfall and storms. It has been implicated in Urban Runoff Mortality Syndrome, where stormwater discharges coincide with salmon returning to the streams where they were born, causing mass deaths of adult fish before they can reach these spawning grounds.
Since 2022, scientists from UKCEH have taken samples from sediment in the River Thames in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, next to a busy road bridge, and on the River Irk in Manchester. Sediment was chosen for monitoring because the particles from tyres and road wear are dense and can be relatively large and will quickly form part of the river sediment.
Sediments are very diverse and can undergo rapid changes, particularly during heavy rainfall. Any method to quantify toxic chemicals in sediments accurately must take into account how variable concentrations are where you are sampling. Through repeat sampling, the project team was able to detect differences between the more contaminated site on the River Irk, and the less contaminated sediments in the Thames at Wallingford.
Using gas chromatography mass-spectrometry techniques*, they analysed each sediment sample to detect the presence of 6PPD. By looking in detail at how variable each location could be, the team proposed a way their sampling method could be rolled out in future to robustly detect measure and quantify the presence of 6PPD and measure its quantity in water courses.
In addition to this work, UKCEH was able to use the same sampling design to quantify other microplastic fragments in both waters and sediments, an essential step towards understanding the extent tyre wear particle pollution compared to other sources of microplastic pollution in these rivers.
The chemical 6PPD has been identified as a priority substance for monitoring by the Environment Agency’s Prioritisation and Early Warning system and so the method developed at UKCEH provides an essential tool to understand more about this compound and the wider risks that microplastics and tyre wear pose to freshwaters in the UK. It is aimed at governments and regulators, as well as tyre and additive manufacturers that are interested in product risk assessment.
The UKCEH team is keen to hear from anyone interested in using the tool to monitor microplastics and tyre wear in the environment. You can get in touch and find out more about UKCEH’s research in this area via our microplastics analysis webpage.
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Media enquiries
Images are in a dropbox. For interviews and further information, contact Simon Williams, Media Relations Officer at UKCEH, via simwil@ceh.ac.uk or 07920 295384.
Notes to editors
Sediment samples were taken from a transect in Wallingford where a busy road bridge crosses the River Thames. A new method to extract 6PPD from these sediments and quantify this chemical indicator for the presence of tyre wear microplastics was developed using GC-MS, where the unique fingerprint of this chemical could be measured.
*About Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)
Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) is a powerful tool used to study and monitor environmental pollutants in many types of environmental samples, such as water and soil. The Gas Chromatograph separates each contaminant within the sample according to their properties. The Mass Spectrometer analyses these components by their mass and the resulting characteristic pattern of masses detected can be used to demonstrate what and how much of those contaminants are present in the sample.
About the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a world-leading centre for excellence in environmental sciences across water, land and air.
We investigate the dispersal, fate and behaviour of chemicals and polluting substances in terrestrial and freshwater environments. Priority pollutants of interest include radionuclides, pesticides, organic pollutants, toxic metals, nutrients and manufactured nanomaterials and plastics.
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is a strategic delivery partner for the Natural Environment Research Council.
TOM VARNER, A UTSA DOCTORAL STUDENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, EXPLORED THE MOBILITY OF ARSENIC FROM THE SEDIMENTS SURROUNDING THE MEGHNA RIVER IN BANGLADESH AS PART OF A NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION-FUNDED PROJECT.
From Bangladesh to India to Texas, Tom Varner is leveraging his research to improve sources for drinking water around the world.
Varner, a UTSA doctoral student in environmental science and engineering, explored the mobility of arsenic from the sediments surrounding the Meghna River in Bangladesh as part of a National Science Foundation-funded project.
The river flows through central Bangladesh, where elevated concentrations of arsenic in the groundwater threaten the welfare of millions of people. Long-term exposure to arsenic, which is toxic when ingested, can lead to cancer, epigenetic defects, vascular disease and other health ailments.
The project is a collaborative effort between researchers in the UTSA Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. Most recently, Varner traveled to India in spring 2023 to complete a Fulbright research project along the Hooghly River. The work complimented the work he did along the Meghna River in Bangladesh.
Varner is working under the mentorship of Saugata Datta, director of the UTSA Institute for Water Research, Sustainability and Policy. The graduate student’s work, which integrates aspects of science, engineering and public health to address water resources, carries significance outside the laboratory.
“This represents a new research topic for UTSA,” Datta, professor and chair in the UTSA Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said. “As part of the international scope of this research project, UTSA experiences a high level of interest from the international scientific community. Varner’s work has established the groundwork for many aspects in upcoming proposals, which once funded, confirm UTSA’s classification as an R1 university.”
Varner is investigating a phenomenon known as the Natural Reactive Barrier (NRB) along the Meghna River and Hooghly Rivers wherein the mixing of oxygen-rich river water and reducing groundwater in the riverbank facilitates the formation of iron-oxides, which can effectively remove the arsenic from the groundwater.
A robust understanding of this natural phenomena may be used to identify low arsenic groundwater zones along rivers where drinking wells may be safely installed and can be further extrapolated to understand the cycling of metals and contaminants along river corridors.
“Understanding more about these processes and the natural reactions that occur between the river and aquifer will provide the groundwork for future studies to understand how contaminants behave in the environment,” Varner said. “There are social benefits that can be applied as well; preventing exposure to arsenic in drinking water can help to improve the health of afflicted communities. The research also is relevant for environmental risk assessment and remediation projects dealing with groundwater contamination along river corridors.”
Although the study’s primary focus is within Bangladesh, Varner’s research provides insights into the universal processes regulating arsenic in groundwater. His work can be applied to further understand similar groundwater systems in local areas.
“For example, the iron-enriched sediments within the deltaic aquifers along the Brazos River in Texas and the nearby Mississippi River delta are also associated with elevated arsenic in the groundwater and parallel the conditions we have observed in Bangladesh,” Datta said.
Varner has produced six publications detailing the processes responsible for high and low arsenic concentrations along the Meghna and Hooghly Rivers. He’s also contributing two book chapters to the upcoming book titled “Advances in River Corridor Research and Applications,” detailing work along the Hooghly and Beas Rivers in India.
“UTSA has provided a great platform to jump out and do this research, from the financial support of grants from Dr. Datta and support from the EPS department to go to conferences. The Graduate School has provided support through various means, such as graduate student travel grants and award-based competitions such as the Transdisciplinary Team Grand Challenge. There’s always support there,” Varner said.
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