The overall winner of the prestigious Aquatech Innovation Award 2017 was announced to an influential water sector audience yesterday at the opening ceremony for the Amsterdam International Water Week and Aquatech Amsterdam exhibition.
The top spot went to a highly innovative Dutch technology that can recover toilet paper cellulose fibres at sewage treatment plants and produce a marketable cellulose product suitable for use in applications such as road construction.
Award jury chairman Prof. Cees Buisman, Scientific Director of Wetsus, European centre of excellence for sustainable water technology, commented:
‘This is a very good example of resource recovery and is a perfect example of the circular economy in action.’
A record 78 entries were received for this year’s award across five categories. These had been narrowed down to 14 nominees by the independent expert jury for the overall prize. The winning entry, from company CirTec B.V., was then placed first in the category ‘Waste water treatment’ by the jury and secured the overall prize ahead of the winners of the other four categories.
Environmental benefits and a usable product from the winning entry
The winning technology, named ‘Cellvation’, was developed in partnership with KNN Cellulose. The benefits cited include a reduction in energy and chemical costs for sewage treatment, along with a reduction in the amount of sludge that is produced.
Cellulose is used as a technical product in applications such as road construction, offering an outlet for the marketable product derived from the Cellvation process.
Entries to the Aquatech Innovation Award are assessed against three criteria: innovation, feasibility, and sustainability. Cellvation scored highly against all three. In terms of feasibility, Prof. Buisman noted that two full-scale plants are in operation, and that use of the final product in road building has been demonstrated. ‘The whole chain has been shown, so we believe it is completely feasible,’ he says. ‘The innovation is that they have connected all these steps together, and not only taken the cellulose out of sewage, but processed it so it can be reused.’
Full results are as follows:
Overall winner: Cellvation cellulose recovery, CirTec B.V.
Category: Innovation – not yet to market Countinuous Counterflow Adsorber water treatment, Blücher GmbH
Category: Process control technology & Process automation Satellite remote sensing leak detection, Utilis
Category: Transport & storage Picoturbine water network energy recovery, Technoturbines S.L.
Category: Waste water treatment Cellvation cellulose recovery, CirTec B.V.
Category: Water treatment Closed Circuit Reverse Osmosis treatment technology, Desalitech via Lenntech B.V.
Special mention DaaS (Data as a Service) for Water Quality Monitoring, s::can Messtechnik GmbH