Opportunity for

Intensive agriculture and power generators interested in commercialising water treatment technology to recycle wastewater and effluent with hot gas bubbles from exhaust gases. Use cases include:

• farms and wastewater treatment plants with biogas generation
• waste disposal industries like landfills with biogas generation
• biogas plants and coal power plants which emit large amounts of hot CO2 from exhaust gases that can be reused.
  ^This opportunity is only for professional and sophisticated investors.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge:

Intensive agriculture generates large quantities of effluent and wastewater. There is an opportunity to take dirty wastewater and make it safer to recycle through the production system. This may include using it for wash water as well as potentially providing a source of clean drinking water as a by-product of the process.

Opportunity background:

A device (bubble column evaporator) has been developed at small commercial scale to destroy pathogens in wastewater using hot bubbles. This device has been tested using hot air, combustion gas (from gas generators) and solar as power sources to generate the heat required. The bubble column also has condensers mounted to cool the heated air and retrieve a stream of pure water. The device can also be used to desalinate brackish water. The device has been tested and works in principle in field conditions but has not been tested on farm due to covid restrictions. The market is potentially any intensive agriculture production system that is seeking to recycle water including pork, dairy and horticulture.

Current opportunity:

Australian Pork (APL) and The University of New South Wales (UNSW) have developed a device to sterilise and recycle on-farm effluent and are looking for commercial partners to take the device from the current large pilot stage to commercial manufacture. IP is protected by a patent for the Australian market, but there may be opportunities to explore this internationally.

Potential other applications:

There may be potential to use this technology in other sectors, such as the wastewater sector or for providing clean water sources to rural communities, if the pure water production capacity is up scaled.