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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PFS (A cost- energy-efficient treatment technology to remove pharmaceutical pollutants from water)

Teaser

Summary

Widespread contamination from pharmaceuticals, such as synthetic or natural chemicals found in prescription medicines, over-the-counter therapeutic drugs & veterinary drugs, that are finding their way into the drinking water supply via wastewater, is posing serious threats to public health. Pharmaceutical compounds such as hormones and endocrine disrupters are already responsible for major health issues. Their presence in water, even at low concentrations, has raised concerns in the EU among drinking water regulators, governments, water suppliers & the public regarding these pharmaceutical contaminantsâ€™ risks both to human health and the environment.

The problem is that current wastewater treatment methods do not degrade many of such pharmaceutical contaminants, and may even generate more toxic by-products. Modern wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) are built for collection, transportation and purification of wastewater. They aim to reduce organic waste which may cause oxygen depletion in receiving surface water, and reduce nutrients (e.g. nitrogen & phosphorus) that can cause over fertilisation of receiving lakes, streams and the sea. They are not designed for effective removal of pharmaceuticals, and routine monitoring programs to test wastewater for pharmaceuticals have not yet been implemented in EU, as is the case for regulated chemical & microbial parameters. In most of the cases, they remain with purified water and are released back to the environment, ultimately consumed by humans.

In this Phase 2 project we will industrialize Pharem Filtration System technology to make it ready for large scale roll-out at WWTFs in different countries (such as our key target markets in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Nordic countries), validate it at several trial case sites & run multiple experiments for improvement of the technology and start business development activities to prepare for the launch. We will also extensively communicate about the project progress to raise the awareness of both decision makers and the general public about the problem of pharmaceutical pollutants in the wastewater, and disseminate project results.

Work performed

Installation of Pharem Filtration System
The system has been installed at Hammarby SjÃ¶stadsverket. This installation is designed to be the stress test system of the project where all the parameters can be optimized and developed. This installation has been up and running from early June and has so far given detailed insight into system optimization designs. The project has also had several planning setups with for the three additional demonstration installation and is all planned to be executed during Q1-Q2 of 2019.

Flow metric optimization
The design of the current system was done by a practical approach as the main benchmark. There are technologies for optimizing flow metrics into the different columns. There are also technologies for optimizing the flow properties of the columns. With the application of advanced flow metrics to the system, there has been an improvement to the diffusion of pollutants to a higher occurrence of enzyme contact. This has improved the cost efficiency and removal rate at the same time and made it possible for the system to handle even bigger flows of water compared to the beginning of the project.

Life length optimization
The project has also worked on the optimization of the life length of the filter material and improved the loss of efficiency over time. Reducing the loss over 4 weeks by almost 50 %.
Task 1.6â€”Optimize the life length of enzyme filter material

Technology verification
The project has also developed so that the results generated can be verified by ISO 14034 and hold a high international standard

Public tenders and customer projects
A first approach has been to establish a project with a customer in Sweden according to an innovation public tender. The customer has opened up for making an installation during Q3-Q4 of 2019.

Conferences and PR
- Part of the VattenstÃ¤mman held by Swedish Water
- Part of WinWater conference held in Malmoe Sweden
- Part of VA-mÃ¤ssan (biggest wastewater conference in the Nordics)
- World Water Week in Stockholm
- Article in Government Europa issue 27
- Winner of EUtop50
- Presented at the World Water-Tech Innovation Summit in London

Final results

\"Without technological & infrastructural interventions the Global Sustainable Development Goals on clean water and sanitation (Goal #6) and on biodiversity safety (Goals #14-15) are at risk of not getting achieved. Pharem Filtration System is a solution designed to make an important contribution to address the safe and clear water and the environmental impact challenges. With Pharem Filtration System we provide a technology to remove pharmaceutical residues and other organic pollutants from wastewater. As a result, we prevent these residues from reaching humans and animals in drinking water. This results in cleaner water that is released into the environment, and ultimately in cleaner water that is returned to humans for drinking.
One impact deserves a separate mentionâ€”traces of antibiotics routinely show up in drinking water samples in the EU countries. This means that different groups of population, regardless of their levels of consumption of antibiotics, are exposed to them indirectly. Since Pharem Filtration System removes a large number of antibiotics traces, it significantly lowers the chance of emergence of â€œsuperbugsâ€ that developed resistance to antibioticsâ€”a substantial health risk for the global population.
The importance and impact of clean water on human health is a well-researched subject (e.g. our partner IVL took part in EC-funded FP7 PHARMAS project)â€”by reducing pharmaceutical contamination of water Pharem Filtration System will contribute towards health, wellbeing and longevity of EU citizens.
The project and the PFS system is on a good track of offering a unique solution for the market. By enabling a solution that offers low CAPEX entrance and competitive OPEX the PFS solution can open up a much larger part of the market and enabling wider adoption of advanced wastewater technologies for removing organic micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals. This impact can be substantial for the effort on combating these pollutants in the future.
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