Innovations for a clean water

Declining water quality is a global issue. At a time when the global population is growing and industrial and agricultural activities grow, plus the impact of climate change, clean water is become scarcer globally. While this is not new phenomena, I was amazed at the innovations that are being developed by researchers in UK, India, Africa, Singapore and Brazil to deliver safe drinking water and prevent pollution of waterbodies.

About 45 researchers, government departments and companies in these countries came together in Johannesburg, South Africa from 3-5 August to discuss the challenges posed through rising pollution of water resources and its potential solutions. This included water testing, prevention of water pollution, water purification/treatment and recycling of wastewater.

The conference (‘Emerging Frontiers for Sustainable Water, A Trilateral Partnership: Africa-India-UK‘) was organised by the University of Johannesburg (Department of Applied Chemistry/Institute of Nanotechnology and Water), DST / Innovation Centre Mintek Nanotechnology -Water Node, Prof Pradeep’s group at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, UK Science & Innovation Network and the Royal Society of Chemistry. I must specially thank Prof. Catherine Ngila and her team, from the University of Johannesburg, for all their help in making this conference happen.

Researchers from several countries including Ghana, Kenya, India, UK, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana and Singapore presented some of their challenges and how they were dealing it. There were some common threads that emerged throughout the conference. One of them was the need for rapid, low cost and easy to use techniques to understand water quality parameters and treatment of water and wastewater.

For example attendees were interested in low cost sensors and devices that monitored pollutants in water, including naturally occurring ones like arsenic and fluoride. Dr. Christopher Johnson from Imperial College provided details on a handheld device he is working on to monitor arsenic levels and has tested it in West Bengal, India. Another area of huge interest was treating sewage especially in a low resource setting. Prof. Huw Taylor provided an interesting case study of his work in Haiti post the disastrous earthquake, where sewage can be treated using simple materials like quick lime. He also highlighted how bacteriophages can be used to track microbes in waterbodies using simple microbiological techniques. Prof. Tom Arnot from University of Bath explained the potential of Membrane Bioreactors (MBRs) in decentralised domestic water treatment using a case study from the North African region. These MBRs use energy consumption levels similar or lower than a conventional activated sludge system, with added benefit of producing treated water suitable for agriculture.

Water bodies across the world are now seeing new kinds of pollutants. Traditional sewage systems are unable to treat some of these complex organic compounds effectively. As a result, it has become common for water bodies that receive treated sewage to contain painkillers, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, pesticides etc impacting aquatic life adversely. Monitoring typically involves the collection (e.g. grab sampling) of low volumes (1-5 L) of water with subsequent extraction and analysis in an off-site laboratory. This technique can miss episodic fluctuations (e.g. due to sporadic input of chemicals or rainfall events) in pollutants. Passive sampling devices can be used to overcome this problem. These devices are effective in capturing the presence of such chemicals and monitoring their quantity over long periods. Prof. Graham Mills from University of Portsmouth, showcased his patented passive sampling devices named Chemcatcher® which can be used in quantifying pharmaceutical chemicals in a river.

The conference also saw researchers discuss about challenges related to monitoring water quality across large watersheds. Richard Allan, who represented both James Hutton Institute and Centre for Ecosystem and Hydrology, presented his experience in monitoring water quality in the catchments of Scotland, and examples of using decentralised ecological based wastewater systems in rural areas.

The water conference provided insights into the world of nanotechnology and its use in providing safe drinking water and treating wastewater. Several researchers from Africa showed how nanomaterials (in terms of electrospun fibres, coatings, etc) incorporated into filters could remove toxic chemicals from water. Prof. Pradeep from IIT-Madras showed how nanotechnology based filters can be used to remove contaminants from drinking water. Using nanomaterials, Prof Pradeep and his team have developed an impressive affordable drinking water purifier which can be used in arsenic affected regions. This has been deployed in several parts of India.

One of the key points raised during the conference was on commercialisation of research, how to take prototypes of interesting innovations to finally become commercial products. Many researchers expressed the need to collaborate across countries to tackle pollution and produce solutions that can provide safe drinking water at affordable prices and treat sewage in an effective manner. A report on the conference will be available on this website soon.