Water purification

BPC’s clean technology and expertise in microbiology simplifies and streamlines the bioremediation process resulting in significant cost savings making it affordable to customers of all sizes. The company offers water purification market solutions that combine a full engineering process with BPC’s unique bioremediation know-how. After-sales support ensures the maintenance of steady state performance. BioPetroClean (BPC) treats industrial wastewater in a more efficient economical and ecologically friendly manner then any currently known process.

This technology provides materials and methods for the production of activated carbons from biochar where such activated carbons have specific area and pore volume characteristics. The activated carbons may be used for any purpose necessitating the need for them such as water purification air-cleaning solvent recovery catalyst supports and as an energy storage form. They may also be useful in the production of a super anode for a super capacitor or battery.

Challenge: Oil spill contamination cannot be cleaned rapidly and completely from varied environments. Technology: Ferrofluids are colloidal dispersions of magnetic nanoparticles that can be manipulated with an external magnetic field. This invention proposes to apply ferrofluidic principles to the mitigation of oil contamination of solids (wetlands) water surfaces and water sub-surfaces. The particle size surfaces and dispersants can all be optimized for stabilizing oil removal collectability and water purification.

Summary: More and more chemicals of various origins are being discharged into our local water streams ending up at waste and water treatment facilities. These chemicals comprising of pharmaceuticals personal care products and other various industrial chemicals are currently not removed by typical wastewater treatment practices. Further current regulations from the Food and Drug Administration do not require testing or removing these chemicals even as their amounts aggregate in our drinking water.

Unique particles derived from acrylonitrile or other materials which are capable of selectively absorbing uranyl from groundwater surface water and wastewater.Applications:This technology can be used to improve the quality of a water supply by safely effectively and inexpensively removing uranyl ions from the water. The presence of uranium in groundwater is a growing problem in the United States and one without effective treatment to date. These particles can also be used in portable field systems for analysis of uranyl content on site.

Chemical contaminants such as nitrogenous wastes found in aquacultures or groundwater may contaminate nearby areas and drinking water supplies. Groundwater pollution may be caused by activities such as industrial waste disposal accidental spills fuel tank leakage or application of fertilizers herbicides or pesticides to crops. Natural causes such as arsenic also may result in groundwater contamination. Organisms are a major cause of water and aqueous environment contamination and are one of the world’s largest health concerns.

This invention provides compositions and methods for inducing and enhancing order and nanostructures in block copolymers and surfactants by certain nonpolymeric additives such as nanoparticles having an inorganic core and organic functional groups capable of hydrogen bonding. Various compositions having lattice order and nanostructures have been made from a variety of copolymers or surfactants that are mixed with nonpolymeric additives.

The on-line monitoring capability of heavy metal ions would be of interest to the laboratory water market. Heavy metal ions are a cause of environmental pollution from a number of sources including lead in petrol industrial effluents and leaching of metal ions from the soil into lakes and rivers by acid rain. The concept of stripping voltammetry is a well understood and highly respected technique that has been applied for trace level detection of heavy metal ions such as zinc lead cadmium copper mercury arsenic etc.

The technology uses forward osmosis integrated into a microbial fuel cell to improve the efficiency of the fuel cell and the quality of the treated wastewater to meet water reuse requirements. Wastewater flows through the anode chamber where water is drawn across a membrane into the cathode chamber resulting in the generation of electricity an effluent prepared for aerobic digestion and saline water. The saline water can be further processed using desalination methods like reverse osmosis to yield potable water.

Northwestern researchers have developed a unique family of adsorbents (KMS) that removes toxic and precious metals from aqueous streams more effectively and at a lower cost than existing technologies. The metal sulfide based ion exchange micro-sorbent is composed of inexpensive non-toxic elements and is produced by easily scalable processes. The material is extremely cost-efficient for two reasons. It has a high capacity which minimizes the amount of material required and is recyclable following metal recovery.