Greentech Media

Ensuring access to clean water is one of the biggest challenges facing the global community in the 21st century. The amount of currently available fresh water is static, though growth in absolute population and population density is increasing dramatically. Every year millions of individuals in developing countries die because of lack of access to water or because of contaminated drinking water. In developed countries, overuse, mismanagement and underinvested infrastructure are creating water shortages and sanitation problems in many large cities.

Green-technology applications for water purification and water recycling present significant solutions to many of these problems. Investor interest in green water technology has been spurred by the recent upsurge in the application of new technologies to water problems. This is a market with a consumer base of more than 6 billion people and growing. The growing realization that a tightening supply is both a significant problem and a significant opportunity has led a number of scientists, investors and entrepreneurs into this segment of the green-technology market.

Key Components

• Water Purification - Purification technologies address a significant problem facing both developed and developing countries. Current commercial technology is effective at removing certain types of contaminants, but larger systems with integrated purification technologies are needed to filter out all contaminants. Another challenge facing water purification is flow rate. Larger systems necessarily take longer to process clean water, creating supply bottlenecks.
• Aerobic Granular Sludge Technology - Certain anaerobic bacteria introduced into dirty or contaminated water will form solid granules around impurities such as heavy metals, human and animal waste, and chemicals. In prototype tests, it has acted successfully as a tool for desalination. The granules sink to the bottom of the bacteria reactor, while the remaining clean water is filtered out. Progressing this technology out of research phase may produce an inexpensive, accessible method for acquiring clean water.
• Membrane Distillation - This process addresses both purification and desalination issues, the latter of which is an important aspect of increasing global water supply. Dirty water is heated into a vapor and passed through a salt- and contaminant-catching hydrophobic membrane, and then cooled on the other side. This process is ideal for rural areas or developing countries, as it incorporates concentrated solar heat to vaporize water and is less energy-intensive than other membrane processes. Further advances in nanotechnology focused on membrane have the potential to increase the effectiveness of this process.
• UV Disinfection - The genetic material found in water-borne bacteria and viruses is effectively neutralized after absorbing radiation from an ultraviolet light source. The UV light rearranges the genetic material within DNA and RNA, making the organism unable to reproduce while sanitizing the infected water. UV radiation adds no chemicals, does not change the water's taste and does not remove water's nutritional elements and minerals. The process itself involves passing water through a chamber with a UV light source. However, existing UV disinfection technology is not completely effective, and provides better results with pretreated water.

UV Disinfection

Atlantium

• Wastewater Treatment and Recycling - Wastewater treatment and recycling addresses the specific need for creating additional freshwater resources. Household water is often used only once and then discarded, even though it is not technically contaminated. For areas with water limitations or shortages, or businesses that have high water needs, secondary water-recycling technologies will play a key role in future water-conservation efforts.
• Domestic Grey-Water Recycling - Grey water is the end-result of household water output from showers, sinks, washing machines and dishwashers. A number of different domestic water-recycling devices have been developed to divert grey water away from the drainage system and toward home-integrated treatment systems. Recycled water can then be used to water the garden or for renewed use in washing machines and dishwashers.

Domestic Grey-Water Recycling
FreeWaterUK	EcoNova	Perpetual Water

• Industrial and Commercial Water Recycling - These systems are nearly identical in function to the domestic grey water-recycling systems, but they are scaled up for use in construction sites, apartments and commercial buildings. Industrial and commercial recycling systems are ideal for providing onsite treatment and recycling of toilet water, which can be pumped back through the onsite sanitation system, as well as for equipment cleaning and industrial water uses.

• Water Management & Monitoring - Combining treatment, purification and desalination technologies into an efficient system requires constant monitoring and management of the water supply. Water-management technology uses sensors to monitor water quality and distribution. These sensors transfer information to software for systems optimization, which will ultimately create more conservation and efficiency gains for both residential and utility-scale water consumers.

Water Management & Monitoring

Sensicore