Public Funding for Hydrolize Limited

Phosphorus & Phosphorus salts (P) are essential to all life on earth, and we have exploited this for enhancing crop yields for many years. However, it is more recently been highlighted that a significant amount of P enters our aquatic natural environments including our lakes and rivers in concentrations that can be detrimental to aquatic life. The elevated levels of P can come from two main sources, wastewater, and agricultural runoff. The result can be catastrophic to nature by promoting harmful algal blooms. Currently, the use of P is a one-way system. We mine it, apply it to our crops, dose into our water distribution systems, and the vast majority is ends up in our rivers acting like natural drains leading this very important element to the ocean. P is non-renewable. We cannot effectively generate it; therefore, we need solutions that help recover the phosphate we use to significantly increase the efficiency of this process and significantly decrease the environmental impact of P. Like plants, microorganisms require P for survival, in natural systems P will be consumed for fuelling microbial growth. This project will utilise and enhance this natural process for the recovery of phosphate and reduce the demand on an electrolytic secondary stage of treatment. P will be captured by environmental microbial communities and stored as biomass within a structure know as biofilm. We have found that when the conditions change from high P levels to Low P levels, there is a release of P from within these communities. This entire process is driven by natural microbes, and we hope to engineer this process to work with them to reduce the amount of wasted P. The release of P could then be reused to fertilise crops in a circular economy driven by nature and engineered using science and technology.

This industrial research project involving collaboration between Hydrolize and Cardiff University, will investigate a novel 4in1 Advanced Oxidation Technology (AOT) for water treatment, which holds significant potential benefits over current approaches. New, safe, low-cost and advanced water remediation technologies are required to remove an ever growing list of harmful pollutants entering our environment. The project output will be the demonstration as small scale of a disruptive multi-mode AOT platform capable of removing pathogens, organic / inorganic compounds and heavy metals from water streams, without the need for chemicals or ozone.

no public description

The project will investigate innovative (chlorine free) methods of reducing the current size, complexity and cost of pool water treatment technology via the formulation and micro-dosing of natural compounds which have potential to control algae and pathogens. The project will combine this with existing knowledge in phosphorous control for greater algal and pathogen inhibition with minimal chemical usage. The project will result in a more environmentally sustainable pool water treatment technology as an alternative to chlorine with lower running costs , improved swimmer experiences and lower maintenance burdens.With over 10m existing pools globally, the results of the project are particularly relevant to the price sensitive retrofit market. Even low levels of adoption would lead to annual savings in the region of 2m tonnes of CO2 per year.

To develop a chemical free, plug and play mineral water filtration system for global deployment in high volume and high value swimming pool markets.