Water Insights Unveiled: Navigating 2023 and Beyond

Join hosts Divya Inna and Rhys Owen as they reflect on the pivotal water-related events of 2023. From the rise of PFAS concerns, extreme weather events, and innovations in water treatment technologies to exploring the mysteries of sludge treatment and the quest for effective microplastic detection methods, the hosts delve into the latest insights and breakthroughs. Special attention is given to Blue Tech's November intelligence briefing, highlighting topics such as recycling reverse osmosis membranes, the adoption of anaerobic membrane bioreactor technology, and the ongoing battle against PFAS contamination in sludge treatment. 

Tune in for a comprehensive overview of the water landscape and a sneak peek into what the water industry may hold in 2024.

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Transcript

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Welcome everyone to Blue Notes podcast series brought to you by leading water intelligence market experts Blue Tech Research We're your hosts I'm Divya Inna And I'm Rhys Owen And we're back talking about all things water But so welcome Rhys It's been a while since we did this I think I don't know how many years now It has been a while Yeah Hi Divya Yeah it's good to be back doing this again So we're going to be talking about the research that Blue Tech has done this month And we'll go through what we've been covering in a minute Yeah But before we get into that to the specifics Rhys I just wanted to ask you I guess we're at the tail end of 2023 And what we've been focusing on or I guess the mood at Blue Tech has been very much kind of reflections looking back through 2023 and what's happened in terms of our event that's coming up on the December 14th On 14th of December we do have our end of year water almanac series So that will definitely it's definitely one I'd recommend all our viewers bookmark in their calendar 4pm GMT if you're in Europe North America There is also an Asia Pacific one morning running I think 8am GMT But 14th of December is the date for that But that's got me thinking about 2023 And I know we're still a month in advance of the year actually ending But how's the year been for you so far? Yeah good Thank you I was just thinking as you said that what are the main themes of this year? I think for us PFAS has been one of the biggest topics that we've been talking about Yeah And more broadly I think water has come to the fore in the public discussion in the news We've seen we've had lots of extreme weather events around the world lots of floods PFAS is a much bigger issue a much more publicly visible issue in North America than it is Europe in the UK In the UK the profile of the water sector has been raised in quite a negative way by the amounts of pollution released into the rivers by the water companies And elsewhere of course yeah we've had flooding in the UK too We've had flooding in many places in the world You know we go on about this in the water industry We obviously like to talk about water but I'm glad you mentioned the term extreme weather events Because just before this podcast I actually found an extreme weather event calendar for all the events that have taken place in 2023 I'm not joking There is actually something under each month of this year And there's all sorts of headlines from worst floods in decades in Somalia and Kenya deadly storm in rips through Western Europe powerful hurricane in Mexico and wildfires in Canada and cyclone in Myanmar It's just endless So like you know I guess it's not a you know it's it's not we're not all in this big echo chamber talking about water and how important it is It's actually making headlines It's you know climate The climate crisis has been hard at work through 2023 We've seen record breaking news is from Africa to Chile to Canada to Asia It's here to stay if we don't do something about it Yeah that's right Extreme weather events have become almost routine when you when you look at how many there are And that's how we've talked about water and climate change We've always been saying that you know it's going to be expressed through too much or too little water Yeah Yeah It's it's it's leads into almost everything that we're covering these days Exactly Which brings us I guess to what we're trying to do in these podcasters which is shed a bit of light each month on the work that Bluetech are doing So for this particular episode we're referring back to the November edition of our intelligence briefing series which is something all our clients get a copy of But there was a few things that struck out to me Rhys in our edition this month One was that we provide a taster I guess of our new article on recycling and reverse osmosis membranes which I find interesting as a topic because of course given its excessive use there there is a growing concern in the industry over the accumulation of the spent membranes So anything we can do to reduce this waste I guess would be welcomed But the bit I don't get is how are these membranes recycled or brought back to life? I mean we're talking about a really delicate complex construct here So like how does that even work? Yeah that's right it is our own membranes are very complex And I was quite surprised to find that you can essentially turn them into other membranes Yeah And what's been happening is a Spanish research institute called the IMDA Water They've developed a method of basically just treating the RO membranes with sodium hypochlorite And that strips off the outer layer the polyamide layer on the outer surface which is the part that gets fouled and degraded at the end of the membrane's life And that results in a membrane which is not a UF membrane but mimics its properties extremely closely You can use it as a UF membrane And even more interestingly by adjusting that process they can make something very much like an NF membrane So you can effectively produce UF and NF membranes out of old RO membranes And that's got environmental benefits Yeah And I guess from a market interest standpoint and this might sound rather obvious but I don't see why any end user a utility or an industrial end user wouldn't be interested in exploring this further as it means saving a huge cost saving for them in the long run doesn't it? Well there are still technical challenges and like any upcycling material like this you need to have a market a functioning supplier chain And so some plants are further away from where you might be able to distribute RO membranes There's the question of having a steady supplier for RO membranes and all these membranes But I mean it's very compelling The cost looks like it might stack up as well according to one study If you look at the price range of new UF or NF modules they range from between 400 to 800 euros for a module You can create these sort of mimics of UF and NF membranes from former RO membranes for below 100 euros So you can see there's a very compelling economic case there potentially Yeah And you know what would be really interesting would be to compare how long is the lifespan of a secondhand RO membrane and how does that compare to a brand new RO membrane? Hopefully it isn't too much shorter because otherwise what would be the point of it all? You can extend it by a number of months I forget the exact figure but I think it's not doubling the lifespan but it's increasing it by a year or 18 months or something like that It's definitely worth studying more than anything OK yeah talking about waste and recycling you know microplastics is something that we're covering this month What did you think about that? I thought it was interesting but you know like every time someone mentions the word microplastics it's like you hear this big sigh in the room because yes we acknowledge it's a problem but we keep coming back to the fact that we right now don't have a method for detecting them in the environment which means we cannot measure the extent of the problem And we know it's a big problem but it's not good enough to say big if we're going to invest millions if not billions to try and fix it Yeah that's right and it's a tricky area The more you look into microplastics and nanoplastics the more problems you find with even knowing what the situation is even just gathering a sample of water to test is difficult because most big containers are plastic and might leach nanoplastics into the sample contaminated So you need expensive heavy stainless steel containers And that's before you get to looking at the disagreement over what counts as a nanoplastic or a microplastic and all the different hundreds or even thousands of types of plastic and their different properties It's a very complex problem Yeah and I mean is there any sign of us making any progress in the detection area? Well we've got an article on specifically detection of an analysis of micro nanoplastics and there are a couple of companies It's an unmet need but there are a couple of companies working on scanners not scanners but detectors for microplastics using a number of quite established methods like electro chemical impedance spectroscopy established method But because of the difference in measurement techniques and the disagreement over what counts as microplastic and whether you should use one metre cube per sample size or take 15 cubic metres as a basic sample size that's the kind of range of disagreement that all complicates things Right That complexity is making it difficult to legislate And without that legislation there isn't that same pressure to invest and to install this kind of equipment and to use it But yeah there are a couple of prototypes out there which are looking at developing in-situ sampling and analysis technology OK Yeah so we really need something Well we need those to accelerate to you know first to really move the needle here in the microplastics area Yeah exactly Moving to something a little bit more data driven I guess one of the things that struck me was we did a piece on an NBR market And for those who don't know what an NBR is it's an anaerobic membrane bioreactor technology that combines anaerobic digestion and membrane filtration in a single treatment process step So we looked at this particular technology and the market more specifically But what struck me was that when I saw the adoption of NBR technologies that you know really that the market actually isn't growing as quickly as we thought or I should say isn't growing as fast as we'd like it to grow In fact I think the adoption curve shows that there's been some sort of slowdown in installations since 2019 Was there a reason we chose to highlight this particular technology? Well the reason we revisited it is because it's a very interesting technology with huge potential especially for industrial wastewater especially food and drink But yeah there was a very rapid rise in installations until around 2020 And then it's still rising but it's leveled off a little bit which we weren't expecting to see And that's partly maybe because of the expense of the membranes compared to standard membranes And it's partly because of awareness It's not really something that certainly utilities aren't very aware of A lot of industrial sectors are not too aware so far And there are only three main suppliers So it's a very young technology in that sense Very young technology I mean two really dominant suppliers and then you know one or two smaller ones But yeah very very young market you know early market I guess and new technology Yeah so it's you know the advantages are you get higher quality effluent You can produce biogas which can offset your energy requirements which is huge But there are technical challenges as well It doesn't work so well in lower temperatures And it's vulnerable to shock loading as well But yeah having said that there's yeah it's a little bit of a mystery why it's not rising quite as fast as it was I guess it's the retrofit market is maybe the easy wins have gone And now it's a question of you know plugging away and opening up that market in a more standard way Yeah And you know for our audience if you want to get understand those numbers and get behind the data do do do read the article And the data set is accessible through the blue tech platform as well And then finally and it feels like we like the extreme weather events we can almost have a topic on PFAS or we've we have almost had a topic on PFAS every month this year And we return again this month with looking at the impact of PFAS on sludge treatment Yeah exactly And this is just this is exactly why we've launched our PFAS watch service So this month we're looking at the effect of PFAS or the impact of PFAS on sludge treatment practices A lot of people will be aware that the state of Maine and the US has banned land spreading of biosolids for agriculture because of concerns of the PFAS Not many of the places have followed suit yet but we think that that's probably going to come And so attention is looking at turned to what are the ways you can destroy PFAS in sludge? And we are looking at thermal techniques In this article You know the whole sludge to land debate has has been going on for years and I think if there's one thing that's going to you know finally move the needle here I think it's going to be PFAS Something is you know especially in states like you know states like Maine And you know they may not be the only one There might be other states that follow suit But if they all start rejecting sludge because of the fact that it's got PFAS in it then we really do need to find another solution for sludge disposal Yeah because incineration plants and landfills in lots of places are not accepting sewage sludge anymore or it's becoming more difficult to dispose of any other way So if you can't put it on the land you've got to treat it But obviously that comes at a cost And you know the pressures to use that biosolids on the land are enormous in places where there isn't any other choice or there's lots of open rural areas And you know there is a concern over the contaminants but it is an extremely good way to get rid of it and good for good for crops So it's not going to be an overnight change here I think Yeah definitely one area to watch And then I guess lastly for all the water nerds out there one of the other things that we do in our monthly edition is track patents the IP landscape in you know the IP trends So is there anything in particular that jumped out to you this month Rhys? When we looked at patents you know there any particular patents that stood out for just how novel they were or the type of application they were being tested on? Yeah so we tend to pick out new applications rather than granted patents to comment on every month And we've got one which is called Improved Apparatus and Method for Remediation of PFAS Contamination in an Environment by BioLargo And what they've got is an aqueous electrostatic concentrator And this is an electro dialysis device which claims to be able to you know remove PFOA and PFOS very efficiently at levels greater than 90 percent So that's one interesting one to look out for there Yeah definitely We'll definitely read you know we do have a patent watch database as well where you can click in double click into this particular patent and read more get more details that way So yeah be be sure to look out for that BioLargo patent That's particularly interesting for us this month Anything else Rhys any any final words there? I think we've covered we've summed up some of the areas that we've looked at this month quite well But any any other things that have crossed your cross your desk this month? Yeah there's been a couple of quite a lot of interesting news especially with Aquatech Amsterdam being held in early November So that was when a lot of companies issued lots of news and released new products or offerings Nihouse Sour Industries have acquired I think at least two companies Surtech the Dutch company that separates cellulose from wastewater for recycling They also bought Natural Systems Utilities which provides residential and commercial on-site wastewater and water treatment technology And to clarity the PFAS startup using electrochemical methods to destroy PFAS raised fifteen point nine million dollars in their series A funding round That was quite interesting And yeah there's lots of lots of movement in the sector Lots of link leak detection related news This is something that utilities are really getting seriously into now And lots of technology providers are trying to get in there and provide various ways of detecting leaks or predicting them or managing them It's always fascinating at this time of the year with the amount of conferences we have in the water sector as you quite rightly said We do see a lot suddenly You know it's almost like things accelerate around Q4 of any given year So we've just come back from Aquatech We were at Weftech earlier this year or earlier in the month So yeah lots of different news Similarly in the PFAS vein I guess around a clarity having successfully completed series A funding We also saw some news on Pure Affinity that was not this month but you know previous months where they also raised some funding funding So it's been it's been a busy busy quarter in general Yeah it's almost like conference season in the last quarter of the year Although you know you could go to a water event every day of the year if you wanted to There's always something happening Exactly And of course it'll be the Blue Tech Forum in the first half of next year So we'll be sort of slightly outside of the pack So hopefully lots of people can make it to that Yeah Third and fourth of June is the date The location is Edinburgh Scotland So you know one thing we can promise you is whiskey tasting and some Scottish music for sure Weather wise we're hoping it to be a sunny crisp sunshine Scottish bright summer day for sure But you know and then of course in Edinburgh Castle you can't really beat that view So that is a stunning backdrop Yeah that was great being there last year I'm looking forward to seeing that again Yeah a refreshing change I think from trade show floors conference centers which can get you know you forget there's a world outside when you're stuck sometimes Very different vibe to you know landing in an airport and having the conference in an airport hotel You're in a castle It's very memorable Yeah exactly We look forward to welcoming all our clients and the Bluetech community and family there for sure next year So that's another date for your calendars But with that we'll be back again in you know in a few days time Hopefully you've got the 14th of December marked in your calendars as that will be the day you will get to hear from different Bluetech team members on their summary of 2023 as well as a little bit about 2024 So what can we predict and what what can we forecast for next year and beyond? So do look forward to that And thanks very much Reece We'll be back very very soon Yeah thanks Divya Bye for now Bye for now So that's the summary of 2023 as well as a little bit about 2024 So that's the summary of 2023 as well as a little bit about 2024 So what can we predict and what what can we forecast for next year and beyond? So do look forward to that And thanks very much Reece We'll be back very very soon Yeah thanks Divya Bye for now Bye for now