Wastewater treatment
Grey water
Treatment of grey water for reuse in tourist parks, hospitals, nursing homes, retirement villages, sporting and recreational facilities, etc. is the first commercial application of the bio-gill technology. We thank the Lane Cove River Tourist Park for kindly helping with our research and development, and the installation of our initial full-scale 20 kilolitre per day treatment system.
Sewage
Clinical trials of the bio-gill technology with sewage treatment produced results that were far superior to conventional technologies.
Industrial wastewater
The largest potential for the bio-gill technology is for treating trade wastewaters. Extensive trials of the technology have demonstrated that it can very rapidly remove soluble nutrients (BOD) and convert them into biomass. We have already proven the technology with grease-trap wastewater, surfactant manufacturer wastewater, winery wastewater, brewery wastewater, dairy and cheese factory wastewater.
Conventional technologies use submerged cultures of predominantly bacteria. With the bio-gill system, when treating nutrient-rich solutions, fungi are the predominant biomass on the bio-gills where they grow aerial hyphae that project into the air and substrate hyphae that grow through the membranes into the liquid.
The aerial hyphae increase the surface area of the membranes so that 1.0 m2 of membrane can have up to 4,000 m2 of hyphal surface area which supercharges the oxygen mass transfer, making biomass grow and remove nutrients from the solution 4 to 7 times faster than the best performing submerged cultures. In our trials, we have removed up to 50,000 mg/L of BOD from solution in a single day, and a removal rate of 10,000-13,000 mg/L in a single day is the average, depending on the nature of the nutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrate).
We have successfully treated wastewaters that kill the biomass in other treatment systems, such as grease-trap wastewater and surfactant manufacturer wastewater.
Drinking water
In some regions of the world hygienic water sources are not readily available. The bio-gill technology has very low energy requirements so it can be coupled to renewable energy sources for remote operation. The reliability and simplicity of operation means that systems may be economical to set up to treat the water supply to a standard where tertiary treatment is practical for the production of potable water.
A recent World Health Organization (WHO) study reports that various diseases caused by unsafe drinking water resulted in 1.5 million deaths each year globally, the majority being children. |
Aquaculture
Treatment of wastewater and aeration of aquaculture ponds is a very expensive component of this industry. The bio-gill technology will be developed for this application in the second wave of R&D.
Mining
The bio-gill technology has been demonstrated to be very efficient and rapid technology for oxidizing ferrous ions to ferric ions by Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans for bioleaching of various metal sulphates (copper, vanadium, uranium etc.) in mining operations.
The culture was capable of oxidising ferrous ions and sulphides to ferric ions and sulphuric acid more rapidly and at a much lower pH than the same organism in a submerged culture, so leach water will potentially be able to be reused. In such operations, aeration costs can be significantly reduced.
Bioremediation of landfill sites
Treating leachate from landfill and waste dumps is a growing environmental concern, and bio-gill technology has the potential to remove/neutralise a great variety of toxins such as dioxins, benzene and aromatic hydrocarbons. It provides the oligotrophic bacteria that perform this function, the optimal conditions of aeration and a suitable place to hold-fast to make their highly valued peroxidase enzymes which make hydrogen peroxide from oxygen and water. The H2O2 digests and neutralises these toxins, rendering the leachate non-toxic. |
