WaterWorld Newscast - Jan. 20, 2020

Jan. 20, 2020
Water and wastewater news headlines for the week of January 20, 2020

The following is a transcript of the WaterWorld Newscast for the week of January 20, 2020.

Hi, I'm Angela Godwin, bringing you water and wastewater news headlines for the week of January 20. Coming up...

  • Speeding evaporation with 'solar umbrella'
  • Scientists discover new water filtration process inspired by nature
  • N.C. food processor turns wastewater into energy
  • How Racine wastewater utility is 'doing more with less'
Evaporation ponds, which are commonly used in many industries to manage wastewater, take advantage of natural evaporation under sunlight to reduce large volumes of contaminated water. But, they take up a lot of space.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated a way to double the rate of evaporation -- which means less space is needed.

They built a flat-sheet photo-thermal device -- a "solar umbrella" -- that selectively absorbs solar energy on one side and emits mid-infrared energy on the other.

In the lab, their prototype device enhanced the evaporation rate by more than 100% over natural evaporation.

In real life, the sheet would sit about a foot off the surface of an evaporation pond, elevated by tent posts.

The scientists are continuing their research but believe the solar umbrella could be particularly suited for lithium extraction and zero liquid discharge in desalination plants.

A team of scientists, led by Manish Kumar in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, set out to develop an improved water filtration method inspired by the way our cells transport water throughout the body.

They planned on mimicking aquaporins, the essential membrane proteins that serve as water channels in cells where water is needed -- like kidneys and lungs. But they ended up discovering something even better: "water wires."

By combining the artificial membranes they had developed, they created these densely connected chains of water molecules -- water wires -- that move exceptionally fast, like a train and its individual cars.

The process could be especially useful for separating salt from water. In terms of its selectivity and permeability, Kumar says the method is "a thousand times more efficient than current desalination processes."

At its pork processing facility in Tar Heel, North Carolina, Smithfield Foods is producing renewable natural gas from the wastewater treatment system.

In partnership with Duke Energy and bioenergy project developer OptimaBio, Smithfield will help power more than 2,000 local homes and businesses with renewable energy while reducing its own -- and the state of North Carolina's -- carbon footprint.

The gas upgrading and injection system operated by OptimaBio leverages the facility's three-million-gallon-per-day wastewater treatment system to collect and clean biogas through an existing on-site digester and convert it into renewable natural gas.

To date, this is one of Smithfield's largest renewable energy projects involving wastewater, and its first in North Carolina.

This past December, the Municipal Water Summit brought together wastewater treatment plant directors and industry equipment suppliers for two days of networking, roundtables, and solution-based conversations.

Our own WaterWorld editor Alanna Maya was there. She caught up with Mary-Frances Klimek, a wastewater superintendent from Racine, Wisconsin, to discuss how her utility is "doing more with less." Let's take a look.

[clip - transcript not available]

You can find the full interview and more coverage of the event in the WaterWorldTV video gallery on WaterWorld.com.

The 2020 Municipal Water Summit will take place December 7-9. Visit municipalwatersummit.com to learn more.

For Endeavor Business Media, I'm Angela Godwin. Thanks for watching. 

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