콜로라도 볼더 대학교의 연구팀이 에너지를 생산할 때 발생하는 유기 오염 물질 에너지를 제거하는 동시에 석유와 가스 폐수의 처리를 단순화하는 공정을 개발했다.

콜로라도 연구팀이 발표한 기술은 미생물을 이용해 배터리로 사용하는 기술이다. 환경과 지속가능성 공학을 연구하는 볼더 대학교의 교수이자 책의 저자인 Zhiyong Jason Ren는 “하나의 시스템에서 두 가지 다른 문제가 상충하는 기술적 아름다움이다. 이 과정은 단순한 소비보다는 에너지를 생성해 상호간 이익이 되고, 서로를 보완하게 된다”고 밝혔다. 

미생물 담수화와 관련한 새 기술은 에너지를 방출할 때 미생물을 배포하고 폐수 속 많은 탄화수소를 이용한다. 또한, 에너지는 전지를 설정해 하나의 셀과 다른 쪽 전극에 음전하와 양전하 전극을 설치할 때 사용된다.

 

 

 

Engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder have invented a process that they claim simplifies the treatment of oil and gas wastewater by simultaneously removing salts and organic contaminants while producing energy.

 

The Colarado researchers have published a technique that uses a microbe-powered battery. "The beauty of the technology is that it tackles two different problems in one single system," said University of Colorado Boulder associate professor of environmental and sustainability engineering and senior author of the paper Zhiyong Jason Ren. "The problems become mutually beneficial in our system--they complement each other--and the process produces energy rather than just consumes it."

 

The new technology - microbial capacitive desalination - exploits the energy-rich hydrocarbons in the wastewater by deploying microbes that consume them and release their energy. The energy is used to create a positively charged electrode on one side of a cell and a negatively charged electrode on the other, essentially setting up a battery.

 

Lead author of the paper, Casey Forrestal, who is working to commercialize the technology said: "We use microbes to generate an electrical current that can then be used for desalination."

Ren added: "Right now oil and gas companies have to spend energy to treat the wastewater. We are able to treat it without energy consumption; rather we extract energy out of it."

 

Oil and gas operations in the US produce about 3.3 million Ml of wastewater a year. Its high salinity and organic contaminants make treatment difficult and expensive using conventional techniques. Some oil and gas wastewater is currently being treated and reused in the field, but that treatment process typically requires multiple steps and energy from diesel generators.

 

Because of the difficulty and expense, wastewater is often disposed of by injecting it deep underground. The need to dispose of wastewater has grown in recent years with the the production of shale gas and oil using hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking". Injection wells that handle wastewater from fracking operations can cause earthquakes in the region, according to research by University of Colorado Boulder scientists and others.

 

The demand for water for fracking operations also has caused concern especially in arid regions of the US. Water for fracking operations in the West, for example, has become increasingly expensive for oil and gas companies.

 

To try to turn the technology into a commercial reality, Ren and Forrestal have co-founded a startup company called BioElectric Inc.

 

[출처 = Desalinaion & Water Reuse / 2015년 2월 24일]