Abraham Esteve Núñez is interviewed in the Spanish magazine Aguasresiduales.info
Prof Esteve explains what microbial electrochemical technologies are, what advantages they offer when applied to traditional wastewater treatment systems and what METland® technology consists of, the only one that has hit the market so far.
Dr Abraham Esteve Núñez, Bioe group’s principal investigator, participated on 21 October in a TEDx conference, the meetings of divulgation that gather experts from different subjects to expose in an accessible way their research or personal experiences.
In his presentation, Dr Esteve explained how the decontamination of natural environments through microorganisms contributes to the sustainability, especially when dealing with wastewater treatment. “We are witnessing a cycle change in the way we interpret the microbiology of our natural environments, but also how to exploit applied technologies like those used in our treatment plants,” he said.
Under the motto Watching the Future, the independent event, organised by TEDxRivasVaciamadrid together with the city council of Rivas Vaciamadrid (Madrid, Spain), gathered almost five hours and experts in robotics, virology, climate, photography, blockchain (chain of blocks on databases) and crypto-currencies and even a magician and a poet. The speakers addressed the social, environmental and economic changes that will have to be faced in the short and medium term.
This talk followed the TED format. You can watch it here.
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.