Eitan Levy and Ronen Shechter, the entrepreneurial team behind water technology company AqWise Water Technologies Ltd., which was selected by Clean Edge as one of the ten most promising companies in water filtration, are setting up a new venture which will focus on the production of fuel from heavy duty industrial waste.
The new venture, called EMEFCY (Microbial Fuel Cells), will make use of AqWise's know how in an attempt to succeed where many others worldwide have so far failed - the production of energy from industrial waste, a field that scientists throughout the world have been trying to make a breakthrough in since 1911.
Shechter is the technological brains in the partnership, while Levy focuses on finances and marketing. "It's a winning combination," says Shechter. As for the new venture, the two explain that industrial waste contains organic effluent which, essentially, is fuel. "One of the main goals of waste treatment is the removal of organic substances, such as proteins, sugars, and carbohydrates, which dissolve in water. The practical method for this is purely biological. The right way to approach this is to let the bacteria eat this effluent. For us, the effluent is something that has to be removed, for bacteria it's food," explains Shechter.
"The paradox is that these organic substances amount to a small quantity of fuel in a large quantity of water. Today people are investing a lot of effort in biological water treatment by ventilation, when air is blown in water. It takes a lot of energy to operate this mechanism. In the US, they estimate that 5% of total electricity costs are spent on biological waste treatment methods. Instead of producing energy from this fuel, they try to get rid of it by applying considerable energy. We will treat waste as an energy source," Shechter adds. "We will insert large electrodes into waste water treatment plants, and these electrodes will produce electricity."
How can you actually be certain that this model works? Many people have already tried to run this process and failed.
Levy: "We have statistical models and from this perspective, it works." He added that there are now 10 academic teams worldwide conducting research into the field.
What added value do you have over other researchers?
Shechter: "Our breakthrough is that we combine knowledge accrued within the academia with advanced process technology, mathematical tools, and biological processes. This is my specialty. All of this enables costs to be lowered so that we can treat municipal and factory waste using economically viable equipment."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on October 21, 2007
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