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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ACT (Low energy aeration solution for waste water treatment plants using hydrodynamic cavitation technology.)

Teaser

Summary

Across Europe, water is the fourth most energy intensive sector, with aeration of activated sludge plants contributing a staggering 2% of net electricity usage at country-level. Aeration constitutes 54.1% of the total energy consumed in the wastewater treatment process. This makes the aeration process a huge burden on national grids, expensive and negatively impact the environment. Cavitech is poised to be the revolutionary technology that the waste water treatment market is searching for. Once ACT has proven Cavitech at industrial scale, WWTP will have an energy efficient aeration technology that will drastically cut costs while proving excellent performance. This is vital in Europe since many WWTP need to comply with the energy efficiency directive. In Europe, the implementation of the EUâ€™s Directive 91/271/EEC provided rules for the discharge of sewerage and for its treatment, to avoid environmental pollution and damage to the ecosystems. Compliance with EU directives requires significant effort from utilities in terms of: 1) investment in wastewater treatment plants, and 2) the higher operating expenditures incurred when treating wastewater. For this reason, the most recent studies have aimed to find new processes for water and sludge treatment that improve the pollutant removal rate and determine an affordable cost increase or allow a cost savings.

Work performed

During the feasibility assessment, ACT completed a full analyses of the technical and business potential of their Cavitech aeration technology. The project allowed ACT to formalize a sound technical development plan that forms the foundation for their commercialization.
ACT developed a stage-by-stage development plan that includes optimization of the aerator, the optimization of Cavitech (3 aerators and 1 pump) and subsequent industrial pilots. Pilot sites have been agreed with 3 WWTP plants each with a different configuration.
ACT analysed in detail the go-to-market strategy to define the approach for accelerated and effective market uptake. It was concluded that initially, ACT will complete aggressive marketing across Israel to ensure early revenues alongside an expansion across Europe. European market penetration will come from two avenues. Direct sales to plant operator conglomerates that have operations in Israel and beyond as well as through local distributors.

Final results

Cavitech goes beyond the state-of-the-art as its novel use of supercavitation for aeration of water provides superior aeration efficiency. It does not require air blowers/compressors, air distribution piping, diffusers installation construction and pipes, which dramatically reduces the cost of an aeration system by a factor of 3-5 times. This provides a service Life â€“ 20 years (min) and reduces the deployment time & cost: 8 man-hours per unit to deploy. Importantly, Cavitech could also pave the way for the use renewable energy use due to huge reduction in energy required. This means Cavitech reduces energy consumption for all WWTP by 60-80%, reduces aeration by 60-80% and reduces gas emissions by 30-60%.