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Features
2018/11/2
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. University of Idaho's reactive filtration system uses biochar, an iron-oxide adsorption filter, and ozone that can produce food byproducts.
University of Idaho – Greg Moller
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?
We are confident in the potential to super-scale the Clean Water Machine reactive filtration approach. Scalability is an issue with any water technology development as it advances from the research lab to high-flow applications. Our water treatment research has its origins in mimicking how nature cleans water, specifically soil filtration of water. At its core, our process uses sand with a continuously renewable iron oxide coating. This approach mimics natural filtration, but with a level of consistent, state-of-the-art P removal performance over time.
Nature can operate at super-scaling levels of water treatment, so our challenge is to engineer a system that can mirror that performance with a keen eye on sustainability and costeffectiveness. We have experience at medium-flow scale-up to fifteen million gallons per day. Super-scale applications of water treatment require systems that respect natural processes and overall ecosystem health and balance. A key element in our designs moving forward involve creatively evolving our Clean Water Machine into a configuration that integrates well into natural systems.
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 challenge of harmful algal blooms (HABs) is a super-wicked problem. Super-wicked problems have multiple, complex interconnected causes that defy simple approaches to solution. Since HABs are now linked to climate change, it magnifies the scope of the challenge. We the people caused these problems, and we the people can overcome them. We have to have faith and optimism that humankind can rise to overcome this challenge as a gift to future generations. There are remarkable events in recent human history – such as the Montreal Protocol limiting atmospheric ozone layer destroying chemicals – when the world came together for the greater good. Solving the global phosphorus challenge can be a part of our human destiny as well.
In Florida, fertilizer best management practices decreased phosphorus pollution by over half in a decade. There are good indicators of pathways to a phosphorus solution worldwide. We have a hopeful future as we learn more and behaviors change. The Clean Water Machine Team has addressed the challenge of the George Barley Water Prize with a systems thinking approach integrating carbon footprint considerations and sustainability impact assessment with state-of-the-art phosphorus removal and recovery.
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?
The Clean Water Machine is multi-tool technology platform adaptable to a range of clean water challenges. Like a Swiss Army knife, the tools available can be vertically integrated into the platform addressing state-of-the-art phosphorus removal and recovery, destructive removal of compounds of emerging concern such as hormones and antibiotics, and sterilization of pathogens. We designed the Clean Water Machine to address several public health, environmental quality, and future food security concerns.
In its most basic phosphorus removal configuration, the reactive filtration of the Clean Water Machine has been shown in third-party studies to remove more than half of the pharmaceuticals and personal care products tested with good efficiency (Washington State Department of Ecology and USEPA). The technology was one of only two of about thirty tested that could achieve the ultralow 1.3 parts per trillion mercury discharge levels required by the Great Lakes Initiative (US Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory).
When the Clean Water Machine is in its catalytic oxidation configuration and takes advantage of our patented iron plus ozone catalysis to form hydroxyl radicals, the process destructively removes a range of priority substances in addition to phosphorus (UK Water Industry Research, UKWIR, Chemical Investigations Programme-2, CIP-2).
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.
The University of Idaho and the XPV Water Partners funded water treatment company Nexom, and its start-up company predecessor, have had a successful technology transfer pipeline for fifteen years. The Clean Water Machine Team leverages that relationship for innovation by integrating other partners as well, such as the Google Ventures funded biochar company Cool Planet. Our basic and applied research has received funding from the US Department of
Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission. We are exploring possible and potential partner roles and responsibilities for Stage 4 of the GBWP, harnessing the talents and creativity of the scientists, engineers, and students on our team, as we move forward in helping solve the grand phosphorus challenge of humankind.
5. Do you think you should win? And if you do, what would you use the prize money for?
The qualifying rounds are over, and we now approach the start line of the finals. Stage 4 will be difficult and challenging. It is the moonshot of our freshwater future. The stakes of this competition are high for all of us and all of our children. Like any athlete hearing “take your marks” as the race official raises the start-gun, the Clean Water Machine Team knows we have the will and creative talent for victory. This race must be won regardless of who crosses the finish line first.
The GBWP prize money is simply a buydown of our debt to future generations. Whether this is in business development for clean water, new endowed faculty positions and student scholarships that stimulate solution to the grand challenge of clean water, or enhanced global sustainability outreach to change individual behaviors that change the world, the prize is a catalyst for good.
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