Nano-oxygenation in water treatment by ambient-pressure air-fed, ultra-lowenergy nanobubble generation: AQUA BUBBLES: Nanobubbles for water treatment

Programme(s): HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Topic(s): HORIZON-EIC-2022-ACCELERATOROPEN-01 - EIC Accelerator Open

Call for proposal: HORIZON-EIC-2022-ACCELERATOR-01

Funding Scheme: EIC-ACC - EIC-ACC

Grant agreement ID: 190166658

Objective:

Spun out of UCD Chemical Engineering, AquaB's ambitious mission is to no less than clean up the world's water.

The ‘intellectual machinery’ embedded in our nanobubble-generation and controlled release. This is based on an electric-field-inducing electrostriction, which serves to create a transient negative-pressure region, thereby 'sucking in' gas into the liquid in the form of many nano-bubbles, which are kinetically metastable, typically for many weeks and longer. The energy costs of this additive-free, non-contact method are an order of magnitude lower than 'classical' approaches, e.g. involving massive pressure drops from pumping across Venturi tubes, etc - with a far longer lifetime and smaller, more uniform size range.

In this project, we will revolutionise the low-energy and low-maintenance aeration of water. The novel NB generator will be tested in three use cases - wastewater treatment, aquaculture and agriculture, and prepared for full commercialisation.