Isle Utilities screens and selects innovative technologies for the removal of micro-pollutants as part of the STOWA innovation programme.
The urgency to address the presence of micro-pollutants in our surface water and drinking water is becoming increasingly apparent. A large proportion of these micro-pollutants, such as medicine residues, end up in surface water via the sewer system. For this reason, research has been carried out for years into various ways of removing these substances from sewage treatment plant effluents (WWTPs). In the meantime, various (combinations of) techniques have been found to be suitable for the removal of these substances. However, each variant has its own advantages and disadvantages, so the question is whether there are better alternatives.
Isle Utilities (Isle) is an organisation that specialises in identifying new (water) technologies and linking these to potential end-users all over the world. As such, Isle has identified two innovative technologies for the removal of micro-pollutants from wastewater for STOWA, the research institute for the Dutch waterboards. The two technologies are from the companies Arvia from the U.K. and Pharem from Sweden.
Together with these two companies, Isle consultants and technologists will carry out two feasibility studies within the framework of STOWA’s “Micro-pollutants Innovation Programme”. These studies look at how the technologies compare with the proven methods in terms of CO2 footprint, costs, removal efficiency and effect on the ecotoxicological quality of the effluent. If it turns out that the technologies score better on at least one of these points than the conventional techniques, they will be further tested in a pilot study.
