Low-cost Sustainable Fibrous Materials as a Disruptive Technology for Water Treatment

低成本可持续纤维材料作为水处理的颠覆性技术

• 批准号: 570989-2022
• 负责人: Tufenkji, NathalieN
• 金额: $ 9.11万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Idea to Innovation
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=747099
• 关键词: Low; cost; Sustainable; Fibrous; Materials

With an annual global market of $8.54 billion, coagulants and flocculants are critical to water treatment but carry a significant economic and environmental burden. To simultaneously deal with the issues of process sustainability, cost, and efficiency, we have designed a new water treatment process that uses super-bridging agents based on cellulose fibers that markedly improve the removal of conventional and emerging contaminants during settling by increasing floc size and density. We showed that pristine cellulose fibers can be used to significantly reduce turbidity during water treatment, thereby reducing the demand for coagulants and flocculants. Moreover, by grafting inexpensive iron (hydr)oxides to recycled cellulose fibers, the resulting Fe-grafted fiber can simultaneously adsorb contaminants, bridge flocs, and increase floc density, whilst reducing chemical usage. The unprecedented size of the superflocs produced using fibers enables easy floc removal by screening, eliminating the need for a settling tank, a large and costly process unit. The overall goal of the research is to demonstrate the scalability of our technology with the aim to convince licensing partners to pursue commercialization. We will focus on demonstrating the safety, scalability and performance of metal-grafted fibers at pilot-scale. This research will generate valuable data to prove the commercial viability of our invention for the global water treatment industry. The work will be undertaken with the support of several municipal and industrial partner organizations. This will allow McGill University and the partner organizations to fully assess the potential of the technology and to proceed accordingly towards commercialization. The reusable fiber-based materials combined with separation via screening will allow global water treatment facilities to reduce their capital and operating costs as well as their environmental and physical footprints. Because of their performance and affordability, our products and the associated screening process have the potential to be commercialized globally. This funding will significantly accelerate our market entry by enabling us to demonstrate the performance of our disruptive technology at scale.

混凝剂和絮凝剂每年的全球市场规模为85.4亿美元，对水处理至关重要，但也带来了巨大的经济和环境负担。为了同时解决工艺可持续性、成本和效率的问题，我们设计了一种新的水处理工艺，该工艺使用基于纤维素纤维的超级桥接剂，通过增加絮团大小和密度，显著提高了沉降过程中传统污染物和新污染物的去除率。我们发现原始纤维素纤维可以显著降低水处理过程中的浊度，从而减少对混凝剂和絮凝剂的需求。此外，通过将廉价的氧化铁接枝到回收的纤维素纤维上，得到的铁接枝纤维可以同时吸附污染物、桥接絮凝体并增加絮凝体密度，同时减少化学品的使用。使用纤维生产的superlos具有前所未有的尺寸，可以通过筛分轻松去除絮凝体，从而省去了大型且昂贵的工艺装置沉淀池的需要。这项研究的总体目标是展示我们技术的可扩展性，目的是说服许可合作伙伴进行商业化。我们将重点在中试规模上展示金属接枝纤维的安全性、可扩展性和性能。这项研究将产生有价值的数据，以证明我们的发明对全球水处理行业的商业可行性。这项工作将在几个市政和工业伙伴组织的支持下进行。这将使麦吉尔大学和合作伙伴组织能够充分评估这项技术的潜力，并相应地朝着商业化的方向发展。可重复使用的纤维基材料与筛选分离相结合，将使全球水处理设施降低资本和运营成本，以及环境和物理足迹。由于其性能和可负担性，我们的产品和相关的筛选过程具有全球商业化的潜力。这笔资金将使我们能够大规模展示我们的颠覆性技术的性能，从而大大加快我们进入市场的速度。