Energy Efficient Waste Water Treatment via MFC
Inventive Leap helped position a low-energy wastewater treatment technology for industrial adoption, leading to a major brewery pilot and follow-on funding.
Client
Trinity College Dublin
Sector
University
Publication Date
26 de enero de 2026
Opportunity
In most developed countries, treating waste-water represents around 3- 5% of total electricity consumption and produces significant volumes of hazardous bi-products which are themselves extremely expensive to dispose of and are now the subject of ever-tightening regulations to avoid issues like eutrophication of our rivers and lakes. As a result, the market for waste water equipment is now valued in excess of $70Bn.
To address this challenge, through a Commercialisation Fund award from Enterprise Ireland, Professor Liwen Xiao and his Team from the School of Civil Engineering in Trinity College Dublin has developed a new Microbial Fuel Cell technology which aims to reduce the cost of treating waste water by around 30% and the volumes of sludge produced by up to 95%, initially targeting the industrial waste water segment.
Background
Approach
Our work on this project covered included a significant market outreach to entities across the waste water sector, carried out an assessment into various competing technologies, completed a techno-unit economic study and segmented this huge market ultimately steering the project towards opportunities in the food and beverage sector, a subsegment of the overall market which alone is valued in excess of $10Bn.
As part of our market engagement, we secured a significant pilot opportunity with a major brewery and obtained approval for a significant amount of additional funding to carry out this pilot project.