Project description
A smart way to clean water
The treatment of urban wastewater is important to ensure public health and environmental protection. For the thousands of small and medium-sized urban wastewater treatment plants in the EU, one of the biggest challenges is the real-time and online monitoring of aerobic biological nutrient removal (BNR). This is necessary for the cleaning of organic pollutants from wastewater. In this context, the EU-funded WaMoS project will develop an online real-time monitoring, diagnostic and advisory system for monitoring BNR process status. Designed as Platform-as-a-Service, or PaaS, it will significantly reduce unwanted biological treatment events during operation.
Objective
The biggest pain point of WaMoS customers, i.e. small and medium size Urban Waste Water Treatment Plants (UWWTP, 18.842 in EU), is that state-of-the-art of commercially available technological solutions for real-time and online monitoring of aerobic biological nutrient removal (BNR), responsible for cleaning of organic pollutants from wastewater, does not meet the demands of the market. Lack of suitable solutions forces operators of UWWTPs to »drive blind« in critical situations. This often results in discharge of pollutants into receiving rivers with estimated environmental cost of 300 million EUR per year in EU.
Our innovation : WaMoS is affordable online, real-time, monitoring, diagnostic, alarming and advisory system for monitoring BNR process status, designed as Platform as a Sevice (PaaS). Our Key enabling technology is industrial biotechnology supported by Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technologies. It can completely remove risks of pollution due to problems with BNR process and as such it is an industry gamechanger. Our target is 80% reduction of unwanted biological treatment events during operation of small and medium size UWWTPs. Our customers are reponsible for cleaning waste water of 150 million inhabitants of European Union.
WaMoS is positioned as Smart Water Technology , available market amounts to 360 - 400 million EUR globally, we target market share of 30% till 2025. The main market drivers are new EU legislation, technology (IoT, ML/AI, blockchain) and strong public pressure. Our main competitor is Hach RTC solution, which is still too expensive. WaMoS will be launched on the market for the 3rd of the price of the competition.
Our unique competitive advantage is a combination of long-term (30 years) experience with excellent knowledge and understanding of biotechnology and biological processes, combined with knowledge of IT technology, water business and entrepreneurship.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processeswastewater treatment processes
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnology
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
1000 LJUBLJANA
Slovenia
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.