Anglian Water to develop resources from waste

The 18-month project involves collaboration with Rotorua, New Zealand-based Cetogenix and Cranfield University. It will explore market opportunities for the products generated from hydrothermal oxidation and develop a pilot site to test its feasibility.

David Inman, innovation project manager at Anglian Water, said, “Our work with Cetogenix is about taking biosolids and turning it into more valuable materials.”

Currently, water companies can produce around 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of waste annually and finding ways to handle this waste safely and efficiently is a challenge for the sector.

To this end, the project will focus on the hydrothermal oxidation process that uses heat and pressure to recover and valorise all resource streams from the HTO effluent at a scale relevant to the water industry.

A market research deliverable within the project will investigate whether those recovered resources are best valued within water companies, or in other industries.

Anglian Water plans to use results from Cetogenix’s Ceto-Boost solution – which breaks down organic waste and turns it into useful products - for the full-scale design planned for implementation at its Cotton Valley Sludge Treatment Centre near Milton Keynes.

“The ALL-Streams HTO project’s demonstration at Cranfield University will use a bespoke designed pilot-scale reactor that will allow us to replicate the range of pressures and temperatures used in the Ceto-Boost system,” said Inman. “We looked at a number of hydrothermal processing options and chose the best technology for our needs,” said Inman.

Challenges exist in scaling up the technology. One of the key hurdles is the need to retrofit existing water treatment facilities to accommodate hydrothermal oxidation.

“Current sites do not necessarily always have the space, so there may be a need to find new, larger sites,” said Inman.

Another challenge is the need for new expertise in the water industry. While the industry is experienced in handling dangerous substances, the production of energy-related products is a new domain.

“The production of products for the energy sector is novel to the industry and will require the creation of new job titles and necessitate the hiring of people from other sectors,” said Inman.

For the project to be successful, real-world examples of the resource recovery and value creation will be required so that more investment flows into scaling the technology.

“This is really interesting opportunity because we have to be thinking about how we maximise resource recovery if we are to achieve the net zero targets that Anglian Water has, and help develop technologies and markets that can be leveraged by others to do the same, both in the water industry and further afield,” Inman concluded.

Check back on September 17, 2024, for a Q&A about ALL-Streams HTO with David Inman.