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Features
2018/10/30
Toxic algae - The Barley Prize
$10 MILLION BARLEY PRIZE - THE CONTENDERS
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WaterToday sent a series of questions to the four finalists for the Everglades Foundation's George Barley Water Prize: Wetsus, Green Water Solution, University of Idaho and Leetown Science Center (USGS) - as well as first runner up, ZeroPhos. Green Water Solution submitted its BioPhree system that can remove phosphorus to 10 parts per billion. The process is scalable, and has been applied in industrial and municipal settings.
Green Water Solution, Inc. -- Frank Jochem
1. Given the size of some of the bodies of water (lake Erie for instance), once you meet the prizes expectation of how much water to filter, is your technology/method scalable to much larger amounts of water being cleaned?
The very question displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the algae bloom problem. Scaling to treating a body like Lake Erie is not even a sensible option or question, and attempting to address Lake Erie's algae bloom problem within Lake Erie is exactly what a sensible approach will recommend not to do, for two major reasons:
(1) When it comes to phosphorus capture, why would one first dilute the river/creek water into a large lake and then try to capture the now diluted phosphorus out of a much larger volume of water? Neither technically nor economically does this approach make any sense. Phosphorus capture is the more economically effective the further upstream of the "algae bloom body" it can be executed. Waiting until the phosphorus reaches the large volumes of the Great Lakes or the coastal lagoons of Florida is technically and economically a fundamentally flawed vision.
(2) When it comes to phosphorus capture in a body of water that is plagued by algae blooms already, we can note that these systems have no phosphorus left to be removed – all the phosphorus is already in the form of algae. So then the effort becomes not one of phosphorus capture but one of "algae fishing." Many years of practical experience in the algae (biofuels) industry have taught: there is no straightforward, and definitely no economically feasible, venue to remove microscopic algae from large surfaces and volumes of lakes and coastal lagoons. No matter what some people might promise: if there were such a venue, we already had a flourishing algae biofuels industry. Obviously, we don't. Hence, phosphorus capture from a "size of Lake Erie" is a useless idea.
Phosphorus capture is done cost-effectively and efficiently upstream of algae bloom water bodies and before the phosphorus is converted to algae biomass. Because CAPTURING PHOSPHATE IS MORE EFFICIENT THAN FIGHTING ALGAE.
The efforts need to focus on dissolved phosphorus (mostly phosphate), not on algae biomass; and even other particulate phosphate is less relevant to the dynamics of algae blooms, as the biogeochemical cycling of such particulate phosphorus, albeit eventually contributing to the water system's P balance, occurs on time scales far in excess of algae bloom dynamics, as scientific studies have well documented.
Under these premises, we believe our BioPhree® technology can provide a significant beneficial impact on the water quality of large water bodies such as Lake Erie or the Florida coastal lagoons by applying treatment to strategically chosen upstream locations from which the major point-sources of phosphorus are introduced into the larger water body.
Thereby, BioPhree® technology can be readily scaled to the treatment of several million gallons of water per day, as technology scaling is fundamentally one of redundancy: Adding additional BioPhree® adsorption units will increase treatment capacity while keeping other components of the overall system (regeneration, phosphorus recapture) the same (because they are scaled on the size of the individual adsorption units, not the total number of units). With this capacity of the technology and a strategic analysis of P inputs into Lake Okeechobee, for example, we are confident that a few strategically placed BioPhree® treatment systems around the Lake at sites of major P input can lead to an immediate reduction of total P load to the Lake by 25 to up to 50 percent at a fraction of the footprint and costs of currently employed, ineffective retention areas.
In general, the volume of water our BioPhree® technology can treat is not necessarily limited by the technology itself; it is merely a function of how big a system one wants to build by repetitive scaling. Hence, ultimately, it will be a cost limitation rather than a technical limitation – even at the economic efficiency of the BioPhree® technology, at such scales cost does become a constraining factor. That is another reason why upstream processing, where more phosphorus can be captured from smaller volumes of treatment water, is strongly preferred over "filtering Lake Erie."
2. Do you think that if the problem isn't solved first, fertilizer being used for instance, does it really help to clean the water once?
The question of filtering "the water" once again projects a fundamental misconception of the problem. Even in a large lake or a coastal lagoon, there is no "the water." The water is a different one every day. Water flows into a lake, water flows out of a lake, and the water in the lake today is different from that tomorrow. That applies even to large water bodies such as Lake Erie; if there were no water flow into and out of the Great Lakes, there would be no Niagara Falls! And looking at Niagara Falls might visualize that there is a lot of water flowing into Lake Erie and out of Lake Erie. Of course, the large lakes have a longer water residence time than a small lake on a river. But fundamentally the fact is: a lake is not a bath tub; "cleaned water" will flow out and be eventually replaced by new, perhaps not so clean water. Therefore, just by physical principal, the thought of cleaning "the water" once is a non-valid concept.
However, referring to the first question, cleaning "the water" in the lake is not the preferred path of action anyways.
The preferred path of action is cleaning the water that runs into the lake – and before it runs into the lake. Lake treatment is ideally only a consideration if the lake is rather small and all phosphorus inputs arise from non-source inflow. In either case, as the water changes continuously, as long as phosphorus-laden water replaces the lake water (either from direct upstream inflow or from non-point sources), the water needs to be continued to be treated – until such time that water inflow becomes P-free. In some bodies of water (e.g., Lake Okeechobee), sufficient P is deposited in the lake sediments; even if P loading to the Lake were completely stopped immediately, Lake Okeechobee outflow would remain P-laden for quite some time, as under reduced P loading remobilization of P from the sediments is likely in order to maintain a chemical concentration balance between the water and the sediment phase within the Lake.
As much as it is imperative to capture the P loading into the Lake to improve the Lake's water quality over time, it will also still require a treatment of Lake Okeechobee outflow to the coastal lagoons for quite a while to prevent coastal algae blooms. Hence, effective phosphorus capture has to commence as quickly and efficiently as possible in concert with, for example, developing improved agricultural management practices related to fertilizer use (including novel types of fertilizer vehicles), and is expected to be required for an extended period of time even after fertilizer runoff has been limited in such watersheds where water bodies function as phosphorus depositories (such as lake sediments enriched in phosphorus deposited over years of high P loading).
3. Given the now increasing amounts of pfoas, chemical pollutions, and new dangers being chronicled at an almost daily pace, is your method/technology adaptable to filtering other contaminants easily?
Increasing micropollutants are, indeed, a growing concern in both environmental health and drinking water supply. Our BioPhree® adsorbent material has not been specifically tested for the potential co-adsorption of classes of micropollutants, as the required analytical technology has not been readily available to us yet and commercial analyses are extremely costly and well performed by a few labs only. We cannot exclude co-adsorption of some micro-pollutants at this time but also have no evidence of such co-adsorption. However, BioPhree® water treatment could be readily expanded to include micropollutant removal by adding a serial treatment step through an added adsorbent bed dedicated to such micropollutant adsorption.
As BioPhree® treatment does not alter the chemical and physical properties of the treated water, other than removing phosphorus and humic acids, further treatment (adsorption) technologies can be readily added downstream of the BioPhree® phosphorus capture without affecting process operation.
4. When you have a company doing its daily revenue generation, does your situation mean that a special team has been developed just to win this prize? Some of the participants so far have said money to develop was a challenge.
Green Water Solution, Inc. was explicitly founded to bring the BioPhree® technology – which has been successfully in the market for process water treatment in Europe through our partner firm Aquacare Europe BV – into the US market for natural waters algae bloom mitigation, addressing two major market segments: improvement of phosphorus removal from wastewater and storm water plant effluents, agricultural runoff, and industrial phosphate emitters; and phosphorus capture from eutrophied natural surface waters. However, Green Water Solution was not founded "just to win this prize."
Green Water Solution was founded to make our innovative, efficient technology available in the USA for algae bloom mitigation, to protect the water quality of our challenged freshwater systems and coastal lagoons, and to build a profitable business doing so. As we prepared the incorporation of the company in Florida and started working with our first client, the George Barley Water Prize came about.
Naturally, this endeavor did fit perfectly to showcase our technology, to be evaluated and acknowledged by international expert panels, and to provide the public awareness needed to spread the word: An economically feasible, effective venue to prevent future algae blooms is now available. As we continue to participate in the valuable George Barley Water Prize competition, we also continue our market entry efforts outside the Barley Prize.
Green Water Solution is not a company built on the business model of "winning this prize" but rather on "winning decision makers' trust" that our technology can cost-effectively and significantly improve the water quality of our waterways and prevent cascading ecological and economic harm to our ecosystems and society. Nevertheless, Green Water Solution is a startup company, for which operating capital is always a challenge.
Company operation has hitherto been funded by owner's contributions and revenue realized with initial projects, including previous stages of the
Barley Prize competition. Through close and fruitful collaboration with our Dutch partner firm
Aquacare Europe and Wetsus, the European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Green Water Solution was able to cost-effectively outsource R&D work over the last two years. Obviously, entering the Grand Challenge project of the Barley Prize at a 2 million gallons per day treatment capacity with a capital outlay that does not represent a sale (hence, requires significant pre-payment) exceeds the capacity of any startup company and will now require the closing of a major funding round, while previous Barley Prize stages could be funded without external investment.
5. Do you think you should win? And if you do, what would you use the prize money for?
It is clear that all four teams that made it to the Grand Challenge phase have developed potent and efficient technologies that deserve utmost acknowledgement. For the Grand Challenge, the main challenge is really the commercialization of the technologies: how cost-effectively and technically feasibly can the different technologies be scaled to industrial project size while at the same time presenting a true industrial installation ready for market entry? We feel that Green Water Solution has a major advantage over some other teams, as we already have commercial BioPhree® treatment systems in operation in the commercial market in Europe, albeit at smaller treatment capacities than 2 million gallons per day.
But since the scaling of our technology is fundamentally one of redundancy (ie., larger capacity by simply adding more of the treatment base units), the previous commercial experience gives us great confidence that we can readily scale to the envisioned industrial size. As we are an operating, even though small, company, we also are prepared for market entry on a commercial level right away; and collaboration with Aquacare Europe further facilitates commercial operation, for example by providing pre-installation support.
We have the business structure in place to receive investment into a present business plan, and we have the people in place to provide the technical and business knowledge and experience to run and to grow a successful small business that can receive the trust of investors. Therefore, we think we are further ahead on the commercialization and market entry road than the other finalists; three of which are university projects, not commercial entities at this point.
While we hope for (and work hard on) a near-term market entry in the US independent of and before the Barley Prize Grand
Challenge, we anticipate a win of the Barley Prize providing a major recognition and, therewith, marketing push for accelerated market expansion. At this point, should we be so successful and lucky to win this prize, the prize money will be used not only to pay the outstanding bills from the execution of the Grand Challenge and to satisfy the investors' needs and expectations but also to expand the company, including technical and business development personnel, to accelerate BioPhree® sales and market penetration.
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