ARPA-E has announced an upcoming workshop on the topic of “Energy from Wastewater” on January 27, 2010 in Arlington, Va. The goal of this workshop is to gain a deeper understanding of those areas and technologies that have the highest potential to meet DOE’s goal of developing the technical foundations necessary to achieve net energy output and clean usable water from municipal and industrial wastewaters.
ARPA-E seeks to target high-risk R&D technologies which have been historically overlooked or are considered too risky for typical government-supported R&D funding. Specifically, ARPA-E is interested in methods to produce energy while simultaneously producing clean usable water via:
• Thermal methods for energy generation from wastewater, including ideas related to incineration, high temperature thermal oxidation of volatiles, pyrolysis gasification of solids, plasma processing, and others.
• Biological methods for energy generation from wastewater, including ideas related to algae use, anaerobic digestion, enzymatic hydrolysis, and others.
• Chemical/electrical methods for energy generation from wastewater including ideas related to chemical hydrolysis, microbial fuel cells, and others.
• System components that can enable the production of energy and/or clean water from wastewater, such as new materials (non-fouling membranes, functionalized dendritic materials for binding nutrients, blue light active photocatalysts), new biological microbes, and others.
• Hybrid systems that combine various methods (thermal/biological/ chemical/electrical) and components for energy generation from wastewater, including ideas related to chemical hydrolysis, anerobic digestion, and/or enzymatic hydrolysis, combined with heat; combined enzymatic hydrolysis and digestion; anaerobic digestion with membrane bioreactors; or others.
This workshop will serve as an opportunity for ARPA-E leadership to engage with thought-leaders from diverse technical communities to collectively develop new directions in methods, components, and systems related to the production of energy and clean water from wastewater. ARPA-E will use this information to shape the scope and focus of potential future programs in grid scale energy storage technology.
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) 2
Interested participants may apply to the workshop by sending an email to ARPA-E-workshops@hq.doe.gov stating your interest in attending along with the following information:
1. Your resume including a description of your expertise in producing energy and/or clean water from wastewater.
2. A brief statement on what you see as the key challenges and opportunities currently facing the production of energy and clean water from wastewater.
There is a fee of $95 per attendee to defray the cost of the workshop. Proceedings from the workshop will be summarized in a report which will be available on the ARPA-E public Web site shortly after the event.
