H2020 project iMETland is the subject of a report in Futuris, the Euronews programme dedicated to European research.
Coordinator Abraham Esteve-Núñez, together with Carlos Aragón and Juan José Salas from CENTA, and Carlos Arias from Aarhus University, explain this new, environmentally friendly way to purify wastewater in small communities.
LIFE-ANSWER project will demonstrate an integrated and innovative technology for treating wastewater from breweries. The proposed technology will combine electrocoagulation and MET for the complete (100%) removal of wastewater pollutants. Bioe Group is the scientific manager.
This technology will be implemented in Alovera (Spain) in a pilot wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) able to treat 10 m3/h of wastewater. The final dry residue will be valorised for both energy production (making the process energy efficient) and fertilisers. The project is in line with the Water Framework Directive and its objective of achieving good status for all EU water bodies.
The project is coordinated by Mahou-San Miguel, the largest brewer company in Spain.
IBERIMET, the national network of excellence that brings together the main Spanish groups in the field of Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (MET), held its first workshop at the University of Alcalá, Spain, early December. Abraham Esteve’s Bioe-, coordinator of the project, was in charge of organizing the meeting.
More than 40 researchers from the University of León, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat de Girona, IRTA-GIRO, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena and CSIC met to showcase their lines of research and the latest advances in the field with the aim of encouraging the exchange of experiences and collaboration. Attendees also participated in a practical seminar on microbialelectrochemistry.
The IBERIMET network of excellence is financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (reference CTM2015-71982-REDT)
The main Spanish groups that hold the leadership in the field of microbial electrochemical technologies have created IBERIMET, the National Network of Microbial Electrochemical Technologies. The aim of IBERIMET is to set-up a work group with all the national active groups in the field. From the very beginning (2003) Spanish researchers showed interest in playing an important role in this new-born discipline. After one decade, Spain is the European country with the largest number of researchers in the field, and coordinating H2020 projects MET-based.
The nature of METs is based on three disciplines that rarely converge at high level in the same research group: microbiology, engineering and electrochemistry. The promoters believe that IBERIMET will be a key tool for facilitating the interaction among groups with two main objectives:
– Accelerate the technological development of METs through enhancing the synergism between the partners
– Achieve larger application scale (full scale) to make METs atractive technologies with interest for the industrial sector
More generally, fostering collaboration among different groups of the network will benefit the development of knowledge through:
– Better use of resources and the equipment and facilities of the various groups.
– Accelerating the implementation of these new technologies through the creation of multidisciplinary teams.
– Better training of pre-doctoral researchers in their stages.
Unleashing the small community economies potential through innovative wastewater treatments technologies and standing ready for further replication and market uptake, iMETland was born locally but incorporates a global applicability potential. Innovation stands in the creation of a virtuous circle connecting water, energy, ICT and land resources, safeguarding the surrounding environment. The project aims to construct and validate a full-scale application of an eco-friendly device to treat urban wastewater from small communities at zero-energy operation cost and generate pathogens-free water suitable for irrigation. Four different geographical locations, with very different climate conditions, will be the demonstration areas of the iMETland units: Mediterranean (Spain), North-Europe (Denmark), South-America (Argentina) and North-America (Mexico).
The concept comes from the integration of Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (MET) with the biofilter concept used in constructed wetlands. The combination of electroactive bacteria with innovative electroconductive material leads to outperformance of classical biofilters, resulting in 10-fold higher depuration rates than classical techniques.
The consortium with 11 partners from 7 different EU member states and two associated countries (Argentina and Mexico) is led by Spanish IMDEA AGUA as project coordinator. Further partners are Aqua-Consult Ingenieros, Fundación CENTA, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Piroeco Bioenergy (Spain); Aston University (United Kingdom): Aarhus Universitet and Kilian Water (Denkmark); the media agency Youris (Belgium); INTEMA (Argentina) and IMTA (México).
The unique conversion of sewage treatment into electric current by electricity-producing bacteria makes such a process an internal reporter of the biological treatment. This can be used as output signal to control the process and can easily inform the operator through ICT tools, converting the depuration in an interactive process between device and a smart-phone in end-user´s hands.
iMETland try to fill the gap that was sharply identified by the programme topic WATER-1-2014/2015: Bridging the gap: from innovative water solutions to market replication. The proposed solution has already passed both research and pilot scale and is ready to try a full-scale demonstration to accelerate the market uptake. The multidisciplinary nature of iMETland makes it to fit well with the water and wastewater treatment priority of the EIPwater.
With a budget of 3.5 Million euro over three years, the project brings together European and international universities, research institutes and companies, with strong expertise and experience in the technological fields of wastewater treatments, microbial electrochemistry, ICT, carbon materials, but also on business development and communication. iMETland partners conveyed in Alcalá de Henares on 5th-6th of November to set up a collaborative workflow and kick off the first activities of the project.
Bioe Group was invited to talk at EXPO 2015 during the workshop “Luce Bioelettrica” project, born from the cooperation of Regione Lombardia, MIUR (Italian Education Ministery) and RSE researchers from Università degli Studi Di Milano. This project is running in EXPO Milano 2015, with the aim of introducing a general audience into the mechanisms of energy production from bacteria. Abraham Esteve Núñez talked about ‘Bioelectrochemical systems: recovery energy and valuable products from wastewater’ and show some of the applications that are the objet of projects like SmartWetland or the most recent iMETland granted by the H2020 programme.
The workshop held on 18th October presented the experience of researchers and Italian companies that have taken up the challenge of producing electricity using microbial fuel cells and the project Bioelectric Light (part-financed by the ERDF 2007/2013). The protagonists, along with other international experts, discussed the ongoing trials in Italy and the world, illustrating the first prototypes to power environmental sensors, cell phones and even an electric toilet.
The event was organised by the University of Milan in collaboration with RSE – Research on Energy System (GSE).