Is free wastewater treatment on the horizon?

A new venture by researchers in America could make waste management free in the future, with a new sewage-powered product been tested that can make electricity out of sewage.

The Microbiol Fuel Cell (MFC) is powered by microbes in sewage, and also cleans up the sewage it uses for power. Dr Orianna Bretschger, from the J. Craig Venter Institute, Maryland, has published their results to the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting after making improvements to the original MFC.

Dr Bretschger, told ACS members: "Our prototype incorporates innovations so that it can process five times more sewage six times more efficiently at half the cost of its predecessors.

"We've improved its energy recovery capacity from about two percent to as much as thirteen percent, which is a great step in the right direction. That actually puts us in a realm where we could produce a meaningful amount of electricity if this technology is implemented commercially. Eventually, we could have wastewater treatment for free."

Currently, the MFC is able to convert 13 per cent of the slurry's energy into electricity, but future improvements could lead to larger devices running on the conventional sewage treatment units.

Posted by Joseph Hutton