Our Innovation Analysts recently looked into emerging technologies and up-and-coming startups working on solutions for Smart Cities. As there is a large number of startups working on a wide variety of solutions, we decided to share our insights with you. This time, we are taking a look at 4 promising Wastewater Treatment solutions.
Heat Map: 4 Top Wastewater Treatment Solutions
For our 4 top picks, we used a data-driven startup scouting approach to identify the most relevant solutions globally. The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights 4 interesting examples out of 195 relevant solutions. Depending on your specific needs, your top picks might look entirely different.
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ClearCove – Primary Wastewater Treatment
Primary wastewater treatment serves the goal of decreasing the amount of sewage discharge into the environment of smart cities by directing effluent flows into designated recycling facilities. They enable special screening, sedimentation, initial physical/chemical filtering, removal of solid and flowing contaminants as well as separating water from sludge. Obtained water usually gets reused at industrial and agricultural sites or undergoes further processing. US-based ClearCove strives to lower energy consumption costs and carbon footprint during primary sewage treatment by introducing its “White Knight” treatment method. This solution grounds on the use of gravity-based physical-chemical filtering, which diverts carbon to anaerobic digestion and separates water from contaminants through 50-micron screening. The company produces solutions for new and retrofit installations.
BioGill – Secondary Wastewater Treatment
In most cases, secondary wastewater recycling comes into play after a primary one but also occurs as a distinct process. The secondary treatment is associated with removing impurities as well as biodegradable and organic particles from a city’s H2O discharge based on biofiltration, aeration, oxidation, and use of specific microorganisms to purify water in a sustainable (and close to nature) way. Cleaned water usually serves industrial, agricultural, aquacultural and municipal needs. Australian BioGill produces above-ground scalable and modular bioreactors, equipped with patented nanoceramic films (so-called “gills”), used for planting active biomass. The company’s technology rests on breeding special microorganisms and utilizing them as natural recyclers for decentralized municipal wastewaters. Thanks to specific air spacers, vertical loops and treatment tanks, BioGill’s bioreactors have no need for additional aeration. This helps to reduce energy costs and sludge amount.
Enereau – Tertiary Wastewater Treatment
Tertiary or advanced wastewater cleaning aims at improving the quality of previously treated urban sewage by separating it from inorganic substances (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus) as well as remaining viruses and parasites. This type of treatment helps to make water suitable for smart city potable consumption with the help of sand/polymer filtering, disinfection, and odor removal processes, as well as alternating oxic/anoxic conditions. Besides, tertiary-cleaned water is safe to discharge into the city’s bodies of water. Canadian Enereau manufactures an advanced wastewater recycling platform, called nrPUR. It is a self-cleaning ultrafiltration (UF) system, which allows scalability and integration with secondary wastewater treatment facilities. nrPur traces and eliminates micropollutants (e.g., phosphorus, ammonia, etc.) with the use of UF membranes and polishing filters in order to achieve safe discharge rates.
AquaGreen – Wastewater Sludge Treatment
Wastewater sludge treatment deals with the management and disposal of wastewater leftovers (solids, liquids, bioparticles), acquired during clarification processes. Sludge recycling intends to attain a zero liquid discharge, waste optimization and disposal cost decrease in smart cities. This is achieved through advanced processes of dewatering, composting, incineration, pathogen destruction, conditioning, and biological, chemical or physical stabilization, etc. AquaGreen from Denmark provides products that focus on converting wastewater sludge into thermal energy, capable of supporting sludge facilities and district heating. The company supports this mission by utilizing superheated steam drying and pyrolysis technologies so as to diminish waste volume and weight, kill pathogenic bacteria, save energy and produce an odorless by-product (biochar), suitable for fertilizing purposes.
What About The Other 191 Solutions?
While we believe data is key to creating insights it can be easy to be overwhelmed by it. Our ambition is to create a comprehensive overview and provide actionable innovation intelligence for your Proof of Concept (PoC), partnership, or investment targets. The 4 startups showcased above are promising examples out of 195 we analyzed for this article. To identify the most relevant solutions based on your specific criteria and collaboration strategy, get in touch.
