Oil and gas operations in the United States produce about 21 billion barrels of wastewater per year. The saltiness of the water and the organic contaminants it contains have traditionally made treatment difficult and expensive.
Engineers at the 麻豆影院 have invented a simpler process that can simultaneously remove both salts and organic contaminants from the wastewater, all while producing additional energy. The new technique, which relies on a microbe-powered battery, was recently published in the journal听Environmental Science Water Research & Technology听as the cover story.
鈥淭he beauty of the technology is that it tackles two different problems in one single system,鈥� said Zhiyong Jason Ren, a CU-麻豆影院 associate professor of environmental and sustainability engineering and senior author of the paper. 鈥淭he problems become mutually beneficial in our system鈥攖hey complement each other鈥攁nd the process produces energy rather than just consumes it.鈥�
To try to turn the technology into a commercial reality, Ren and postdoctoral researcher Casey听Forrestal have co-founded a startup company called BioElectric Inc. In recognition of his work with BioElectric,听Ren has been named 2015 New Inventor of the Year by the University of Colorado . The听awards are presented to researchers representing best practices in the commercialization of university technologies.听
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