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

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

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.