What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Conventional wastewater treatments require high energy, operation and maintenance costs. In addition, due to population growth and urban expansion, the volume of sewage sludge produced by wastewater treatment is constantly increasing. Thus, a different water-energy nexus is required to cope with the future global water demand.
Why is it important for society?
The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) (Directive 2000/60/CEE) establish that waters must achieve good ecological and chemical status, to protect human health, water supply, natural ecosystems and biodiversity. In the large cities it is easy to get enough efficiency with low cost per capita, but when treating wastewater in small communities, the solutions used in larger cities are not applicable. Many small communities face significant barriers to building and maintaining effective wastewater treatment services. So millions of european citizens living in small communities require a new paradigm for making decentralized treatments affordable and efficient in order to protect natural ecosystems.
What are the overall objectives?
iMETland project aims to construct and validate a full-scale application of a low-cost, eco-friendly technology to treat and disinfect urban wastewater from small communities by means of electricity producing microorganisms. Our concept has already passed the pilot plan period and it was origined from the integration of Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (MET) with natural wastewater treatments inspired on the biofilters used in constructed wetlands. The inclusion of information & communication technologies (ICT) will confer the i component to allow a friendly unique interactive communication among depuration process and the end-user´s smartphone.
