Drinking water startups

 According to the world health organisation 785 million people lack drinking-water services, it's a structural problem that affects public health, economic growth and poverty reduction.

There's a lot of kind of water: surface water, groundwater, sea water, waste water, ... but drinking water is rare, there's a resource scarcity and a growing demand, in this post we gonna see how 5 startups are trying to solve this issue using different approach.

Sourcing more groundwater: digging water wells

 When the water table is high enough, well water seem to be the easiest way to get drinking water, however the installation and maintenance costs are not always affordable for rural population in developing countries. Providing potable water to poor population is a mission for non profit organization like Water Wells For Africa, according to their website 20$ can provide clean water for 1 person for a year.

How to fund water wells installation?

Non profit organization depend on donations, Ripple is a startup deploying a cause marketing strategy to providing funding for wells digging. On the 7. Apr. 2021, stark education partnership published a video on YouTube announcing the winner of stark tank competition, it's ripple, a social startup that sells 18/8 stainless steel bottles keeping liquids hot or cold for 12 to 24 hours.

Ripple partners with Water Wells For Africa to install water wells in developing countries, Ripple won the 10,000USD first place prize.

Alternative sourcing: Seawater desalination

According to the International Desalination Association, the total number of desalination plants worldwide across all categories stands at 19,372(2017), those plants face coastal pollution risks like oil spills and red tides. If realized those events could reduce a plant production by up to 30%.

How to maintain desalination plants production capacity?

On the 10. May. 2021, MIT news office published an article announcing the winner of 2021 MIT water innovation prize, it's Bloom Alert, an innovative approach to oceanographic monitoring and it's integration to desalination plant operations. It's an oceanographic risk analytics SaaS platform that tracks ocean and desalination plant activity and provides early warnings about events that could interrupt clean water production or lead to coastal pollution. Bloom Alert won 18,000USD.

Bloom Alert is offering a cost reduction for desalination plants, it's a cheaper alternative to on-site sensors.

Surface water sanitation: filtration

Searching for drinking water in semiarid climate is different from searching for drinking water in rain-forest where surface water is available, you do not need to dig wells, instead you will need water filtration.

On the 12 Apr. 2021 the George Washington university office of innovation & entrepreneurship organised the GW new venture competition, Remora was announced as a winner of 10,000USD prize in the social venture track. Remora is developing technologies and devices for water filtration.

According to remora website, this is the list of pollutant that the remora device can filter: 

- sand,

- dust,

- soil,

- dirt particles,

- sediments,

- chlorine,

- mercury,

- heavy metals,

- detergents,

- dyes,

- volatile organic compounds,

- rust.

Wastewater treatment: using bacteria

Consumption reduction is possible by reusing treated wastewater in crop production, silviculture, urban landscape irrigation, golf courses, ground water recharge, .... however wastewater treatment is expensive.

How to reduce the cost of wastewater treatment?

Aquacycl offers modular on-site organic waste treatment system, their patented bioelectrochemical treatment technology makes the bacteria naturally existing already in the waste water breathe very fast to generate electricity and treat the water at the same time, This reduce wastewater treatment from days to hours.

On the 26 May 2021 Cartier women's initiative published a video in YouTube announcing Aquacycl as the 137,000USD prize winner of science and technology pioneer award.

Wastewater treatment: membrane technology

Waterwhelm is an innovative waste heat powered membrane technology, it's an alternative to reverse osmosis (RO) that utilizes waste heat instead of electricity with significantly lower membrane maintenance.

There is two applications to waterwhelm technology:

1- Treating final effluent from wastewater treatment works for re-use as process water or municipal water supply,

2- Digestate/sludge dewatering to reduce flocculant consumption at WWTW's.

On the 25. May. 2021, Scottish edge foundation announced waterwhelm as the 100,000GBP winner of higgs edge prize.

According to waterwhelm website, they are also able to offer: water treatment, desalination, dewatering and concentrating.