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).

Our outreach project PICSI-3D for students has been awarded as the Best Scientific Dissemination work at University of Alcalá. The programme is aimed at introducing high school students in microbial electrochemical technologies (MET).

Throughout the year 2014/2015 students have been immersed in the field of MET through a complete programme based on the fundamentals of modern science: design, develop, disseminate. The project aims to bring researchers to the secondary schools, beyond the classical approach through lectures, talks and science fairs and encouraging students in STEM.

The project has been granted by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through Fecyt 2014 Call.

Bioe Group is attending the ISMET 2015 meeting to be held in Tempe, Arizona, USA, from 1^st to 4^th October. Dr. Abraham Esteve-Núñez is an invited speaker.

The fifth international meeting on microbial electrochemistry and technologies is hosted by the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechonology at the Biodesgn Institute of Arizona State University. It provides an opportunity for researchers worldwide and from diverse backgrounds to meet and discuss microbe-electrode interactions on cutting-edge science.

The magazine International Innovation has published an article about Bioe Group’s research. Prof Abraham Esteve-Núñez, PI, explains the driving forces and the challenges of his research.

The latest issue Rising to the challenge is devoted to researchers that are using their work for meeting the needs of society. In this edition Prof Esteve-Núñez presents his group’s research and main projects.

You can download the complete article here

(Courtesy of International Innovation – a leading scientific dissemination service).