Clean-up Technologies
1. A new nanoparticle agglomeration technology combined with flocculants and drum screens suitable for industrial cooling water systems (CWS), harbours and the open sea;
2. Software app to incentivise and enable handpicking and a materials traceability via blockchain technology;
3. Robotic and standalone drone for hard-to-access areas beach clean-ups;
4. Clean-up activities organized on different locations using various technological solutions which will as well allow us to compare results and litter collected in different aquatic ecosystems.
Archimedean Drum Screw
Similar drum screen clean-up technologies have already been developed and are in use for decades. Partner FishFlow has developed and built a full–scale pilot of an Archimedean drum screw screen which was initially intended for jelly fish removal. It works as a screen allowing 90% of the water flow to pass through while catching (plastic) debris, (jelly) fish and seaweed. Simple tailoring would allow this solution to be very suitable for macro and possibly micro plastic debris removal. Screen sizes can range between 1 meter to 18 µm.
Flocculation
The predominant underlying mechanism in removal of microplastics as well as other organic materials is charge neutralization of the microplastics, leading to flocculation and ultimately phase separation. This is a known process commonly used in drinking water applications.
The project will investigate and implement an environmentally friendly, biodegradable flocculant formulation which can efficiently bridge the gap between the other technologies to be implemented in the project, increasing the size of microplastic flocs or aggregates above the threshold required for removal via sieve technology (Archimedean Drum Screw).
SepaRaptor
A new innovation in clean-up technologies is the agglomeration of nano- and microparticles in water with the help of ultrasound-clustering. Piezoelectric actuators generate overlapping ultrasonic waves. Microplastics and other particles are pushed along these lines to the nodes of the waves. They agglomerate to consolidated clusters, which in the next step can be treated to the flocculation.
In the project an effective way of industrial application of the Separaptor technology in water will be developed.
SEEKer Robot
SEEker, a plastic waste collection robot, is a system made up of three basic components:
- Autonomous vehicle
- Vision system
- Robotic arm for removing litter from the environment
The three components will be integrated into a functional product, able to independently operate without supervision, removing waste from sandy and cobbly beaches.
The terrain where the waste is collected, is one of the biggest challenges for this project. The vision system will be used to locate waste in images taken with a camera placed on a robotic arm. Once the system detects waste, a robotic arm with a special gripper on top will collect and store it in a bin located on the vehicle. A base and loading station will be placed close to the beach where the robot will stand still, inactive, recharging batteries and disposing collected waste before its final transportation to a recycling station.
Empower Deposit app
This solution is aimed to stimulate volunteers and people looking for an income stream by gathering litter. Social rewards aimed at local economies will be encouraged by offers of a discount on your favorite pizza, fitness gym or gifts for others. This will enable the development, growth and sustainability of local blue-economies.
With the software tool on smartphones, handpicking will be done on a larger and a more “data driven” scale than before. For this purpose, an existing software app will be upgraded with:
- Social rewarding
- Use of photos and GPS data of collected litter for verification of waste collected and its origin (trackability)
- Traceability of the waste into the circularity value-chain
Through data gathering and data processing of traceability and trackability functions, the social rewarding for a sustainable new blue economy solution will emerge.