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New
Desalination Cell Makes Energy
 Milwaukee,
WI -- When environmental engineer David Drew read about an
amazing new method of removing salt from seawater, he
embarked on a search for research institutions to
collaborate with on this kind of technology. He didn’t have
to go very far to find one.
Zhen “Jason” He, an assistant
professor of engineering at the University of
Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), was working on just such a
project only a few miles from the Cedarburg office of
Gannett Fleming Inc., the international engineering
consulting firm Drew works for.
He is improving a microbial fuel
cell that generates electricity using wastewater, while also
purifying the water. But after talking with Drew, He
modified it, adding a third capability: desalinating a
separate supply of water.
Zhen “Jason” He, assistant
professor of civil engineering (left), and David Drew, a
project manager with Gannett Fleming Inc., show the input
and output of a prototype microbial desalination cell.
It’s important to a company like
Gannett Fleming, which designs and builds water and
wastewater treatment plants. And the cost of energy, says
Drew, is the reason desalination is so expensive.
In fact, says He, the energy from
their microbial desalination cell (MDC) can drive its own
desalination process. “It won’t do the job entirely, but it
can act as an energy-saving pretreatment for saltwater,”
says He. “That would greatly improve efficiency while
holding down costs.”
The two organizations are now
working jointly to develop an MDC and bring it to market.
It is the second formal research
collaboration between a water-related business and a UWM
faculty member since the creation of UWM’s graduate-level
School of Freshwater Sciences just under a year ago. And He
is pursuing patent protection of his ideas through the UWM
Research Foundation.
Scaling up “Wastewater contains
energy waiting to be harnessed,” says Drew. “So the water
and the energy are both addressed with this research.” He
chose the UWM scientist’s lab over several others in the
country because of its progress in making the technology
more viable for commercial use.
He’s lab members are increasing
the size and scope of the prototype they began with, which
was small enough to fit in the palm of the hand and could
only process 60 milliliters of wastewater at a time.
“Dr. He’s lab was the only one
that had a good solution for scaling up the operation,” says
Drew, “so that it gives you the necessary energy recovery
while also the sustainability of recycling the wastewater.
We did a fair amount of due diligence to determine where
best to put our investment.”
The reactor itself is a
three-chambered device in which microbes feed on the
organics in the wastewater of one chamber, causing removal
of ions from saltwater in an adjacent chamber. The metabolic
energy created by the microbes also is the catalyst that
produces the current.
Building a business The next
step, and Phase I of the partnership, will be to produce an
even larger reactor. If the first year goes well, the
partners have the option of continuing with a Phase II, in
which they will test the reactor’s commercial viability.
“We want to put it on the fast
track,” says He. “We don’t want it to stay in the lab for
another five years.”
But an equal priority, adds Drew,
is that the partners align the research with the business
plan behind it, so that “the two parts are not operating in
isolation.”
In designing a business plan,
they started with a wide spectrum of possible applications
for the work and winnowed it down to identify the specific
market niche they wanted to target. “That helped us focus
very quickly,” says Drew, who has both a bachelor’s and
master’s degree in applied math and physics, and
engineering, from UWM.
It’s not just the financial
support that’s important to his lab, says Professor He.
“Being an academic, I know very little about industry
standards. This way, we can benefit each other.”
Source:
http://www.uwm.edu/
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AWWA Names David LaFrance New
Executive Director
 Washington,
D.C. -- The American Water Works Association (AWWA), the
authoritative resource on safe water, names David B.
LaFrance as its new Executive Director.
LaFrance, 46, has served as
Director of Finance for Denver Water for the past 12 years
and is a respected industry leader in the areas of utility
economics and water rates. He served as chairman of AWWA's
Audit Committee from 2005-08 and its Rates and Charges
Subcommittee from 1993-2002.
"David is a proven leader in the
water community, and he has the ideal skill set to lead AWWA
in the new decade," said AWWA President Craig R. Woolard.
"His superb understanding of the water industry and
experience with the many issues facing our members will
serve the association well."
LaFrance was selected by the AWWA
Board after unanimous recommendations from a Transition
Committee and the Executive Committee, both comprised of
AWWA volunteer leaders. He succeeds Gary Zimmerman, who
resigned in March 2009.
Prior to being named Director of
Finance in 1998, LaFrance served as Denver Water's Manager
of Rate Administration for five years. From 1988-93, he
worked as a utility rate economist with the global
engineering and consulting firm CH2M Hill in Denver and
Portland, Ore., and from 1986-88 he was a natural resources
economist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland.
LaFrance earned an M.B.A. in
Finance from the University of Colorado, Denver in 1992 and
a B.S. in Economics from Lewis and Clark College in Portland
in 1986. He lives in Denver with his wife, Justine, and two
children, Sierra and Devon, both in high school.
"It's a privilege to lead AWWA at
such an important moment in the history of our association,"
LaFrance said. "I look forward to working with AWWA
volunteer leaders and staff in fulfilling our mission to
protect public health and to provide safe and sufficient
water for all."
Source:
http://www.awwa.org/
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From
Pig Manure to Paving Roads
 Urbana-Champaign,
IL -- Swine manure might just be the surprising key to
reducing crude oil imports and creating a new industry in
the United States. Swine manure is being converted to
crude oil at the University of Illinois using a
thermochemical conversion (TCC) process.
In
a
recent article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported a new
use for recycled swine manure - to make bio-diesel asphalt
and then pave a 500-foot stretch of road leading up to Six
Flags in St. Louis with it. To read the full story visit:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/
story/8BD4ECDDEBD84EC686257706000C0410?OpenDocument
Researchers have developed a
continuous process to make it more efficient and faster. The
economic impact of such technology could be dramatic.
"If 50 percent of swine farms
adopted this technology, we could see a $1.5 billion
reduction in crude oil imports every year," said Yuanhui
Zhang, U of I agricultural and biological engineer. "And
swine producers could see a 10 percent increase in their
income — about $10 to $15 per hog."
In addition, Zhang said, the
environmental benefits of this research are numerous.
Minerals are preserved in the after-treatment stream, odor
is reduced and the oxygen demand of manure is reduced by
about 80 percent.
TCC is a chemical process that
reforms organic compounds in a heated and pressurized
enclosure to produce oil and gas. The process that Zhang has
developed uses swine manure as the organic material and
converts it to crude oil using small-scale batch and
continuous TCC reactors developed by Zhang's research team.
According to Zhang, they
conducted a series of experiments on variables that affected
the oil conversion efficiency and oil quality. As result,
they were able to define the desirable temperature range for
the process and reduce the retention time to about 40
minutes. (Retention time is the time required for the manure
to remain in the TCC processor to allow oil conversion.)
"The process we have developed is
quite different from most conventional TCC processes," said
Zhang. "There is no need for the addition of a catalyst, and
our process does not require pre-drying of the manure. Swine
manure containing 80 percent water can be fed directly into
the reactor."
Although the presence of water
requires more energy to heat up the media, Zhang added, most
of that energy can be recovered with a heat exchanger.
Researchers achieved an average
of 70 percent conversion from swine manure volatile solids
to oil. At that conversion efficiency, the manure excreted
by one pig during the production cycle could produce up to
21 gallons of crude oil.
What's more, a swine farm
producing 10,000 market hogs per year could produce 5,000
barrels of crude oil per year. "We further processed the TCC
crude oil in our lab and obtained refined oil that had a
heating value of 80 percent of diesel fuel," Zhang said.
The next step for Zhang's
research team is to develop oil/liquid separation and oil
fractionation systems for the existing continuous TCC
reactor so that a pilot plant can be developed on a
commercial farm.
"In a continuous TCC process, the
heat generated from the process can be recycled more
efficiently, reducing the operating costs," said Zhang.
"Reactor volume can be reduced for the same capacity, which
reduces the investment costs, and automated controls can be
adapted more readily, which reduces the labor costs."
Zhang's research was supported by
funding through the Grainger Emerging Technology Program in
the College of Engineering, Consortium for Plant
Biotechnology Research, Department of Energy, and the
Illinois Council for Food and Agricultural Research.
The process could be adapted to
convert other biomass materials into value added products
and fuel. Currently, Zhang’s group is working on a project
to convert corn fibers into glucose funded by Archer Daniels
Midland.
Source:
http://aces.illinois.edu/
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Badger Meter acquires Cox
Instruments & Flow Dynamics
 Milwaukee,
WI -- Badger Meter, Inc. announced it has purchased Cox
Instruments, LLC, of Scottsdale, Arizona, and its
subsidiary companies Flow Dynamics, Inc., and Exact
Flow. The entities are suppliers of precision and
industrial flow measurement instrumentation worldwide.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition combines the
resources of the three flow measurement companies into a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Badger Meter, Inc. named Cox
Flow Measurement, Inc., which will continue to be based
in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Cox management team will
remain with the company.
Cox Instruments and Exact
Flow manufacture precision, high-performance flowmeters
used in demanding flow applications such as aerospace,
custody transfer and flow measurement calibration test
stands. Flow Dynamics is a National Voluntary Laboratory
Accreditation Program (NVLAP)-accredited primary
standard flow calibration laboratory, supplying both
manufacturers and end users with dependable calibration
results.
According to Richard A.
Meeusen, chairman, president and chief executive officer
of Badger Meter, the acquisition of Cox Instruments and
Flow Dynamics gives Badger Meter several new flow
measurement technologies.
“We believe that Cox’s
high-end turbine meters for industrial and precision
flow applications are a good fit for Badger Meter.
Integrating these products with our existing flow
measurement portfolio will open new market opportunities
for us, while effectively leveraging the customer base
of both companies. Cox has an excellent reputation in
the industry and will be a great addition to Badger
Meter’s line of global flow measurement solutions,” said
Meeusen.
“Badger Meter’s purchase of
Cox Instruments and our affiliate companies provides
exceptional product synergy and strengthens our
competitive position in the global flow measurement
market. The combined organization will benefit customers
greatly with additional distribution channels and
customer service,” commented Cox Instruments’ Mike
Wusterbarth, who will now assume the duties of general
manager of Cox Flow Measurement Inc. Wusterbarth had
served as CEO of Cox Instruments prior to the
acquisition.
Source:
http://www.badgermeter.com/
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| Help Forum :
Hot Messages from the Help Forum
People post their requests
for help and offer their suggestions to others in our open
forum.
Mahmod needs help with
sludge age for nitrifiers:
I need some info regarding
the following issues ASAP. Any help will be highly
appreciated.
1. For a compartmentalized
activated sludge system, to determine yields of heterotrophs
in denitrification compartment and in aerobic compartment
(using standard bioenergetics approach) considering the
amount of substrate removed in respective compartment should
the overall system sludge be used or should the sludge age
in the anoxic compartment be applied for yield in this
condition and the sludge age in the aerobic compartment be
applied for the aerobic yield factor?
2. How the sludge age is
determined for nitrifiers in an anoxic-aerobic
compartmentalized activated sludge system for nitrification
and for endogenous decay of nitrifiers?
3. What is the appropriate
aerobic digestion model using activated sludge model ASM3?
Thanks.
Mahmod
Ottawa University
(Click
here to post a reply)
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| About Us :
Water and Wastewater Newsletter
© 1999-2010 Water and Wastewater.com
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Water and Wastewater Newsletter
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::
New Desalination Cell Makes
Energy
::
AWWA Names David LaFrance
New Executive Director
::
From Pig Manure to Paving Roads
::
Badger Meter acquires Cox
Instruments & Flow Dynamics
:: The News Center : More headlines
:: The Water and Wastewater Blog
:: Video Center
:: Help Forum
::
Water and Wastewater Plant
Directory : Featured Plant
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:: Ask Tom! Column!
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| Hi Everyone,
Lots of interesting news this
week from the AWWA, to pigs to grass. Read on!
With over 12,000+ subscribers,
our goal is to provide information
to improve your business by using the resources available on the
Internet.
Thanks,
Joe Taylor, Editor
jtaylor@waterandwastewater.com
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| This
months Ask Tom! article |
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Using Zeta Potential to Optimize Water Treatment
Guest article by Ana
Morfesis & Ulf Nobbmann, Malvern Instruments
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Do you have an area of expertise in water and wastewater
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The "Dimminutor" Reliably Gets the Job Done
The Millbury,
Massachusetts pumping stations are part of a
regionalized consortium of eight communities that
discharge their wastewater to the Upper Blackstone
Water Pollution Abatement District for treatment.
The 56 MGD facility sits at the Headwaters of the
Blackstone River, once considered one of the most
polluted river ways in the country. As a result of
plant upgrades and projects, the water quality was...(more) |
More case histories...
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Photographs
This week's
photo is of a triple-ring, inground biodigester being built
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Photo courtesy
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