A venture that might considerably cut back the quantity of greenhouse gasoline produced in the course of the remedy of wastewater is being pioneered by the College of South Wales (USW).
The venture, named OXYHYWATER is in partnership with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) and will result in main cuts in greenhouse gasoline emissions.
OXYHYWATER is a novel type of wastewater remedy being developed by the USW-based Sustainable Atmosphere Analysis Centre (SERC), which makes use of pure oxygen, fairly than air from the ambiance, to deal with the effluent.
Preliminary findings are displaying that the venture has quite a few environmental advantages, in keeping with the college.
“By using pure oxygen to treat the wastewater, the costs of the process when compared to that of using air from the atmosphere,” mentioned Professor Alan Guwy, head of SERC and venture lead.
“Utilizing pure oxygen additionally implies that the quantity of secondary biomass generated by the system is far smaller than in conventional wastewater therapies, which reduces the associated fee and vitality necessities of secondary waste remedy.
“Emissions of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide – which can be emitted during conventional wastewater treatment, with a global warming potential around 300 times greater than carbon dioxide – should also be much reduced in the OXYHYWATER process due to its enclosed design and the use of pure oxygen.”
The manufacturing of the oxygen utilized by OXYHYWATER is a byproduct from the manufacturing of hydrogen from electrolysis, one other environmentally pleasant initiative.
“By implementing OXYHYWATER, the water industry could produce the pure oxygen through electrolysis – a process which uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, with the hydrogen used for zero-carbon transport fuel and energy storage, and the oxygen, which would usually be discarded in the atmosphere, used by OXYHYWATER,” added Dr Jaime Massanet-Nicolau, Affiliate Professor of Bio-Based mostly Chemical Manufacturing, and co-investigator on the venture.
“There are also further green benefits as the water industry, an intensive user of energy, has both an abundance of renewable energy and water to make hydrogen where 10-11 litres of water are needed to produce a kilogramme of gas.”
Additional environmental advantages from OXYHYWATER are additionally attainable via its distinctive filtration system.
“The novel system of filtration membranes, which retain microbes used to treat the wastewater in the system, could,” Dr Massanet-Nicolau mentioned.
“This means that the same amount of water can be treated in less time, with initial results showing that OXYHYWATER could manage a larger capacity of wastewater than conventional processes, leading to a large drop in energy use.”
