Photo credit: Ivan Bandura
Among the winners of Ofwat’s latest innovation competition is a technology that cleans wastewater using water fleas. Daphne Water Solutions, a University of Birmingham spin-out, is one of 20 finalists in the £7.5 million Water Discovery Challenge, each awarded up to £100,000 in seed funding and mentoring to test their ideas in real-world conditions.
How it works
The approach uses Daphnia, tiny freshwater crustaceans about the size of a grain of rice, as biofilters. They naturally capture persistent pollutants, including so-called forever chemicals, pharmaceuticals and microplastics, without chemical treatment or added energy. Professor Luisa Orsini, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said the crustaceans had lain dormant in lake sediments since before the Industrial Revolution, and that the system fits within existing treatment processes to enable low-carbon water reuse. The technology grew out of research by Orsini and Professor Karl Dearn at Birmingham, and is being developed with the ATG Group.
The wider challenge
Part of Ofwat’s Water Innovation Fund, the challenge is designed to pull ideas into the sector from outside it, with this year’s finalists spanning academics, energy specialists, farmers and environmental consultants. Other winners include back-up batteries to keep sewage pumping stations running during power cuts, and satellite imagery paired with machine learning to spot reservoir toxins early. Jo Jolly, Ofwat’s director of innovation, said opening the sector to outsiders had produced a striking range of ideas, and that the task now was turning them into results on the ground.
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