Descrizione del progetto
Gli adsorbenti che rendono sicura l’acqua potabile
Una buona qualità dell’acqua e condizioni di igiene adeguate sono aspetti considerati essenziali dall’ONU per combattere la povertà e promuovere uno stile di vita sostenibile. Qualità insufficiente dell’acqua, scarsa igiene e condizioni sanitarie inadeguate sono fattori che causano milioni di decessi ogni anno. Anche la presenza di metalli pesanti nell’acqua potabile è dannosa per la salute umana. Il progetto Hybead, finanziato dall’UE, si propone di far progredire la tecnologia che separa gli ioni dei metalli pesanti dall’acqua potabile. Esso stimerà la fattibilità della commercializzazione di adsorbenti a forma di biglie. In primo luogo, il progetto svilupperà versioni di prodotto e tecniche di produzione economicamente redditizie, mentre nella seconda fase si incentrerà sulla proprietà intellettuale e analizzerà le esigenze del mercato.
Obiettivo
Each year, millions of people, most of them children, die from diseases associated with inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene. In particular, exposure to heavy metals in drinking water, even at trace levels, poses a considerable health risk. As included in one of the seventeen sustainable development goals of the United Nations, “safe water and adequate sanitation are indispensable for healthy ecosystems, reducing poverty, and achieving inclusive growth, social well-being and sustainable livelihoods”. In this PoC project, named Hybrid Bead Adsorbents (Hybead), we aim to evaluate the feasibility of advancing Hybrid Inorganic Nanoparticle/Metal-Organic Frameworks Bead-type adsorbents into the pre-commercial stage, with the aim of accelerating their access to the market as an efficient technology for removing heavy metal ions from water.
The first part of Hybead encompasses scaling-up of our current spray-drying synthesis of these beads from the gram-scale to economically viable kilogram-scale production. We will also shape the composite beads for proving its use into existing water purification technologies. This will entail shaping Hybead into granules and integrating them as fillers into polymer matrices to produce membranes by common industrial-scale methods (e.g. compaction and solvent casting). The second part of Hybead will be dedicated to intellectual property (IP) and market aspects needed for the pre-commercialization of this new technology for water purification. This study will include a patentability study, a freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis and a market study to identify the filter producers that could ultimately serve as manufacturing partners.
In this project we will endeavor to assess the commercial viability of with Hybead adsorbents, accelerate their market entry and ultimately, explore the possibility of launching a spin-off to manufacture and commercialize viable products.
Campo scientifico
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processesdrinking water treatment processes
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringseparation technologiesdesalinationreverse osmosis
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materials
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-POC-LS - ERC Proof of Concept Lump Sum PilotIstituzione ospitante
08193 Cerdanyola Del Valles
Spagna