I-Corps: Bioreactor insert and biofilm support for improved biological and physical treatment of wastewater

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是了解现场工业废水处理市场，以便设计有效的解决方案，确保城市废水处理厂能够继续良好运作，保护环境和公众健康。据UNICESCO估计，全球80%的废水未经处理就被排放回环境中，导致有害藻类大量繁殖、淡水生态系统丧失和饮用水源污染。即使在高收入国家，也有大约30%的废水未经处理就被排放。废水处理解决方案不仅是环境和公共卫生保护所必需的，而且是明智的决策，对卫生设施的投资往往会给社会带来巨大回报。城市污水处理设施经常受到工业排放到下水道的压力，从而限制了工业污染物的负荷。反过来，工业的增长往往受到废水生产的阻碍，这对较小的工业来说尤其是一个问题。I-Corps的工作最初将集中在小型工业废水生产商所经历的痛点上。这个I-Corps项目进一步开发了一种低成本的生物反应器，以满足工业废水处理的需求。基础技术依赖于废水通过其上形成处理和过滤生物膜（微生物）的网的流动再循环。这种新的附着生长生物反应器的方法，它推动废水通过生物膜，消除了代谢物扩散到生物膜中的传质限制，如在传统的附着生长系统中发生的。因为生物膜形成的网孔允许一些固体穿过它们，所以它们不容易堵塞并且允许低压过滤。因此，这种新方法提供了改进的废水生物和有效的物理处理。在具有挑战性的操作条件下，在实验室规模上观察到足够的固体和有机物去除，厌氧，低温处理稀释废水，这表明在较高温度和较高强度废水的挑战性较小的条件下有希望获得更好的性能，这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值进行评估，被认为值得支持和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact/commercial potential of the I-Corps project is in understanding the on-site industrial wastewater treatment market so that an effective solution can be designed to ensure that a municipal wastewater treatment plant can continue to function well and protect the environment and public health. Worldwide, UNICESCO estimates that 80% of wastewater is released untreated back into the environment resulting in harmful algal blooms, loss of freshwater ecosystems, and polluted drinking water sources. Even in high-income countries, roughly 30% of wastewater is released untreated. Not only are wastewater treatment solutions necessary for environmental and public health protection, they are fiscally sensible decisions, with investments in sanitation often yielding significant return to society. Municipal wastewater treatment facilities are often stressed by industrial discharge to sewers, and thus limit the pollutant loading by industries. In turn, industries are often stunted in growth by their wastewater production, which is especially a problem for smaller industries. The I-Corps work will initially focus on the pain points experienced by small industrial wastewater producers.This I-Corps project further develops a low-cost bioreactor to meet the wastewater treatment needs of industry. The underlying technology relies on flow recirculation of wastewater through meshes on which treating and filtering biofilms (microorganisms) form. This new approach to an attached growth bioreactor, which pushes wastewater through the biofilms, eliminates the mass transfer limitation of diffusion of metabolites into the biofilm, as occurs in conventional attached growth systems. Because the meshes on which the biofilms form allow for some solids transport across them, they do not clog easily and allow for low-pressure filtration. Therefore, this new approach offers improved biological and effective physical treatment of wastewater. Sufficient solids and organics removal have been observed at the lab-scale under challenging operating conditions, anaerobic, low-temperature treatment of dilute wastewater, which indicates promise for better performance in less challenging conditions of higher temperature and higher strength wastewater, typical of many industries.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.