OriginAqua

OriginAqua

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A single-step water treatment process, which has the potential to significantly reduce and perhaps one day replace the chlorine in tap water, has won a prestigious challenge award at the World Water Tech Innovation Summit.

Developed by Cardiff University researchers, in partnership with water filtration specialists Origin Aqua, the FreeOxTM technology reduces chlorine use by up to 80%, while oxidising synthetic chemicals, and killing chlorine resistant viruses and bacteria.

The team says their technology overcomes a host of underlying drawbacks associated with chlorine including; resistant bugs, the potential for bad odour and taste, an embodied energy comparable to steel and the production of over 600 byproducts which can be harmful to human health and the environment.

Concentrated chlorine itself can be dangerous requiring careful transportation, handling and storage, causing a headache for water companies.

In contrast, the FreeOxTM oxidation process and is more cost effective, sustainable and healthy. It uses three times less energy than today's technologies while significantly reducing chlorine usage and neutralising chemicals such as synthetic hormones.

One of ten winners of the Water Discovery Challenge, run by Challenge Works and the Water Services Regulation Authority Ofwat with Arup and Isle Utilities, the project team will receive £500k to develop their technology for potable water treatment to the pilot stage.

Chlorination is an energy intensive and outmoded water treatment process, which is ineffective against a wide and increasing number of human-made contaminants.

FreeOxTM replaces these stages of treatment with a single-step process using a catalyst made from gold and palladium in combination with hydrogen gas to effectively oxidise common contaminants without the use of chlorine.

During this process hydrogen peroxide (a commonly used disinfectant usually produced on an industrial scale) is formed from the water itself - effectively using water to disinfect water.

The method, originally presented in Nature Catalysis in 2022, has since shown to be 10,000,000 times more effective at killing bacteria than an equivalent amount of industrial hydrogen peroxide, and over 100,000,000 times more effective than chlorination, under equivalent conditions.

It is also more effective at killing the bacteria and viruses in a shorter space of time compared to other compounds or technologies such as UV or Zone.

L-R: Andrew Cox, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Origin Aqua and Professor Graham Hutchings, Regius Professor of Chemistry at Cardiff University's School of Chemistry

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