1 www.cranfield.ac.uk Membrane Technologies for Decentralised Sanitation, Energy Recovery and Anaerobic digestion. Christopher Davey 17 th October 2018
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www.cranfield.ac.uk
Membrane Technologies for Decentralised Sanitation, Energy Recovery and Anaerobic digestion.
Christopher Davey
17th October 2018
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Outline
• About Cranfield Water Science Institute
• Membranes at Cranfield
• Our Facilities
• Specific project examples
1.) Nanomembrane toilet
2.) Reverse Electrodialysis
3.) Membrane Contactors for Ammonia
Recovery
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Cranfield Water Science Institute
Sewage works of the future
Water for food Water governance and asset
management
Water and sanitation in low income countries
Membrane processes
Catchment management
Drinking water treatment
Bioprocessing and environmental technology
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Membranes at Cranfield
Marc Pidou
Bruce Jefferson
Ewan McAdam
Simon Judd
Chris Davey
Mehrez Hermassi
>10 PhD students: Sam Houlker; Salvatore Bavarella; Edwina Mercer; Kanming Wang; Farhad Kamranvand; Dan Golea; Anna Hulme; Kostas Vasilakos
Permanent members of staff
PDRA
Luca Alibardi
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Materials characterisation Process diagnostics Scaled testing
Permeability assessment -Crossflow -Dead-end
Surface free energy for cylindrical and flat-sheet materials
Gas-mixing manifold for determining gas phase flux of material
Chemical gradient potential
Optical coherence tomography
Real-time particle tracking
On-site demonstration (applicability to real environment)
Pilot-hall. More representative scale of economic feasibility on real wastewater
Import of alternative feed-water for testing new applications
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National water and wastewater experimental facility
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Compliance
Membranes at Cranfield
1 Energy
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Resource recovery
3 Water recycling
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Membranes at Cranfield
Proof of Concept Process Optimisation Scaled Testing
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1.) Nanomembrane toilet
http://www.iwa-network.org/press/18-winners-at-the-12th-iwa-project-innovation-awards/
http://www.nanomembranetoilet.org/meettheteam.php
‘to achieve in-house piped water supply and sewerage connection with partial treatment of sewage would require investment of US$136.5 billion per year’ - World Health Organisation, 2004
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True decentralisation of infrastructure
1.) Nanomembrane toilet
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
0.1 1 10 100
y-Se
ttlin
g ve
loci
ty (
mm
/s)
Sauter Mean Diameter (mm)
PS01 (BSS5)PS02 (BSS4)PS03 (BSS4)PS04 (BSS6)PS05 (BSS3)PS06 (BSS2)PS07 (BSS6)PS08 (BSS4)PS09 (BSS6)PS10 (BSS4)PS11 (BSS6)PS12 (BSS4)
0
500
1000
1500
0 20 40 60 80 100
Pe
rme
ate
CO
D c
on
cen
trat
ion
(m
g l-1
)
Time since permeation began (h)
Faecally contaminated urine
Real urine
ISO Standard
Sedimentation PASSIVE SEPARATION: Can gravity
provide initial upstream solid/liquid separation?
Membrane DISCHARGE STANDARD: Can thermally driven membrane technology provide single stage separation for faecally contaminated urine?
Screw delivery SLUDGE TRANSPORT: Can we achieve solid/liquid separation, faecal sludge transport and dewatering in a single stage?
Combustion SCALE DOWN: Can we reverse engineer combustion to match application scale?
Urine
Permeate Permeate
Faecally contaminated
urine
Mercer et. al., Environ. Sci.: Water
Res. Technol., 2016, 2, 953-964
Kamranvand et. al., Sep. Sci. Technol.,
2018, 53, 9, 1372–1382
Jurado et. al., Energy Convers. Manag., 2018,
163, 9, 507–524
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1.) Water Recovery - Membrane Distillation
Urine
Permeate Permeate
Faecally contaminated urine
Kamranvand et. al., Sep. Sci. Technol., 2018, 53, 9, 1372–1382
Proof of Concept Process Optimisation Scaled Testing
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Concentrate Management and Energy Recovery
2.) Reverse Electrodialysis
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
ΔG
(J k
g-1
)
Δ Concentration (M)
> 80 % of Energy
MD Permeate ~ 0.5 mS cm-1 Drinking Water ~ 5 – 50 mS cm-1
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2.) Reverse Electrodialysis
Proof of Concept Process Optimisation Scaled Testing
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Anaerobic Digestion – Ammonia Problematic
3.) Membrane Contactors for Ammonia Recovery
58% of land in England is designated an NVZ, limiting Nitrogen application
Nutrient value £4-6 tonne-1; disposal cost £10 tonne-1
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3.) Membrane Contactors for Ammonia Recovery
Ammonium sulfate crystals formed
3 Crystals collected downstream
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Nucleation
Nucleation at the membrane
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Membrane
Crystal rotation observed due to applied torque
Crystals growing on membrane
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3.) Membrane Contactors for Ammonia Recovery
Ammonium sulfate crystals formed
Proof of Concept Process Optimisation Scaled Testing
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Conclusions
• Research focuses on process engineering, tailor and adapting membrane processes to unique
applications.
• Capabilities for taking technology from proof of concept to full scale testing.
• Examples:
• Membrane distillation for water recovery from faecally contaminated urine.
• Reverse Electrodialysis for simultaneous concentrate management and energy recovery.
• Membrane Contactors for Ammonia Recovery.
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Acknowlegdements
• Dr. Ewan McAdam
• Nanomembrane toilet: Farhad Kamranvand, Peiji Liu, Edwina Mercer
• Ammonia Recovery: Dr. Mehrez Hermassi, Erwan Allard, Mallek Amine