Wetsus also wins next stage George Barley prize to clean up toxic algae blooms
Dutch-based water technology centre Wetsus also won the second phase of the George Barley prize with its Nafrad-solution, using natural flocculants to remove and recover phosphorus from surface water.
The team, led by dr. Leon Korving (middle on top photo), received a cheque of 50.000 US dollar and enters the third phase of the competition. Together with the two other winners, the team will build a pilot version.
The winner of the third phase will receive a prize of 10 million dollar for full scale application in Florida.
Removal and recovery
The Everglades Foundation launched the George Barley prize in their search to find cost-effective solutions to remove and recover phosphorus from surface water in their combat against toxic algae blooms in the Everglades and along the coasts of Florida.
In total 77 entries from all over the world started this competition on the most promising system to combat algae bloom in surface waters by removing low concentrations – 10 ppb - of phosphorus at low cost.
Minimal footprint and minimal costs
The competition challenged the entries to develop an new system with a very minimal footprint and at cost of less than 120 dollar/kg P.
Wetsus proposed their NaFRAd-solution which is a combination of flocculation with natural flocculants and reversible adsorption with high capacity iron based adsorbents. In this way both particulate and soluble phosphorus can be removed with minimal waste formation.
Wetsus PhD-researcher Prashanth Kumar received an award for the first phase on 22 March, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Two other winners
Other winners of the Stage 2 awards are:
● second place for Green Water Solutions with their BioPhree-technology that decreases phosphorus concentrations to less than 10 ppb even under high-phosphorus inflow.
● third place for USGS Leetown Science Center with an environmentally friendly water filter system using a discarded mining byproducts, called mine drainage ochre, as the primary filtering agent to remove phosphorus from municipal and agricultural waste waters.
This news item is based on the original publication on the website of Wetsus.
Read also on this website
● Wetsus team wins first stage George Barley Prize to combat harmful algae blooms, 31 March 2017
● US and Dutch water sector join forces against harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie, USA, 13 May 2015
More information
Wetsus
Leeuwarden, the Netherlands
+31 58 284 31 62
www.wetsus.nl