Xylem Challenge
THE CHALLENGE:
How can we find innovative ways to maximize nitrogen and phosphorus recovery from municipal wastewater streams while maintaining effluent compliance and minimizing greenhouse gas emission in a cost effective way?
The Problem
Excess nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) emitted from urban wastewater treatment plants can cause significant environmental disruption including eutrophication, hypoxia, and harmful algae blooms in downstream water bodies.
Besides threatening the resilience of aquatic ecosystems, the loss of excess N & P also represents a significant waste of resources that could otherwise be used as fertilizer. P-based fertilizers are typically sourced through phosphate rock from Morocco or other African countries, and N-based fertilizers are normally produced via the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. Recovering N & P from wastewater can therefore minimize both local and global pollution, diversify the nutrient value-chain, and provide a source of revenue to wastewater utilities.
Challenge Solution
Desired solutions will be judged based on their output rather than their method. Technologies may be wet chemical, crystallization, thermal, anaerobic digestion, membrane-based, biological, a combination therein, or any other means through which to achieve the desired goal of an effective, cost efficient, and environmentally friendly process.
Criteria for a successful solution
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An early stage venture working on a water solution for resource recovery of nitrogen and/or phosphorus.
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Preference for solutions close to, or already at, the pilot stage but any technology that has been demonstrated at lab scale in relevant environmental water matrices will be considered.
03
Required:
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Demonstrated (or strong evidence to show) ability to meet effluent compliance guidelines alone or as part of a staged treatment process within relevant field.
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Demonstrated ability to recover nitrogen orphosphorus.
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Reduced lifecycle costs compared with traditional methods.
03
Desired:
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Solutions focused on municipal resource recovery are preferred but we are also open to solutions focused on other markets (e.g. agriculture, food & beverage, or other industrial waste streams).
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Recovery of both N&P
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Maximize N&P recovery rates
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Simple method to harvest N&P
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Minimize operating and capital expense
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Minimize overall treatment process energy use
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Minimize hydraulic residence time and required area footprint
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Reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalent)
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Ease of retrofit (except in the case of full treatment train replacement)
About The Company
Xylem is a leading global water technology company committed to solving critical water and infrastructure challenges with innovation. Our more than 17,000 diverse employees delivered revenue of $5.5 billion in 2022. We are creating a more sustainable world by enabling our customers to optimize water and resource management and helping communities in more than 150 countries become water-secure but the challenges that need to be overcome are too large and multi-faceted for one company to solve on its own.
We need to work effectively across institutional boundaries to tackle these issues for our customers. To this end, we launched Xylem Innovation Labs (XIL) in 2022. XIL’s goal is to drive growth by understanding emerging trends, identifying the technologies that solve our customer’s critical water security problems, and forming mutually beneficial partnerships with innovators to deploy their technology to our partners at scale. XIL partners with the external innovation ecosystem including universities, startups, small companies, water-focused non-profits, research & consulting firms, venture capital firms, and others. The Xylem Innovation Labs model was designed to formalize these collaborations through a programmatic structure that matches the needs of our partners and may include:
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Boot camp: A startup boot camp with curriculum centered around engaging with a corporate and understanding customers/business in the water industry as well as several other topics
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Development: Leveraging Xylem’s resources for solution development/advancement support
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Piloting: Introduction to Xylem customers and support scoping and executing a pilot demonstration of technology
The removal of N&P from municipal wastewater treatment process is a vital step to minimize disruption of the downstream aquatic ecosystem. Failure to remove these chemicals sufficiently may result in nutrient imbalances that can lead to, among other issues, harmful algal blooms. These blooms can block out the sunlight needed for underwater vegetation, reduce the water’s level of dissolved oxygen, and create neurotoxins resulting in the death of both aquatic biota as well as the land dwelling species relying on that water source, including humans. In other contexts this N&P is a vital resource for the growth of biology such as in the fertilization of agricultural soil. Today, N&P are both eliminated from wastewater and generated through energy intensive processes all while utilities are struggling to balance their budgets without increasing rates to their consumers. Recovering and selling this wasted N&P would reduce GHG emissions, diversity the nutrient N&P value chain, and provide a source of revenue for utilities to offset the cost of treatment and reduce rates for customers.