WASE - Decentralised Wastewater Treatment & Energy Productio

Contradicting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 2.3 billion people lack suitable sanitation, and worldwide, open defecation is still practised. Obstacles to waste treatment in these situations are the capital expenditure necessary for centralised sewerage and the operational cost and energy demand of these systems. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) fails as treatment time is long and requires large reactors and consistent feedstock. In response, WASE are developing a revolutionary technology for decentralised wastewater treatment. The three key benefits are: preventing contamination of local drinking water by treating waste (10x quicker than AD), generating high-energy biogas for use as a clean renewable cooking fuel (40% of required energy), and increasing crop yields (by 20%) for local communities by producing fertiliser from nutrients recovered from the waste and providing water for irrigation. Our modular system can be scaled to suit different environments and markets.   

2.3 billion people do not have adequate sanitation, 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.7 billion people do not have access to clean cooking facilities. The water-energy-food nexus highlights the links between these challenges and the need for solutions that address all three areas. Organisations perceive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) as a social issue; however, the world bank estimates that $169 billion is lost globally every year due to poor sanitation. Across 18 countries in Africa, the World Bank estimates 20 million latrines are required to eliminate open defecation with the current population. Countries are investing as little as 0.1% of GDP into sanitation services even though economic losses are around 1-2.5%. There are multiple issues surrounding sanitation service, creating bottlenecks that are limiting investment into new facilities. India is losing an estimated $53.8 billion from poor sanitation. Humanitarian agencies such as Chatham House and The Toilet Board Coalition are asking for private companies to enter the market and develop sustainable and affordable decentralised sanitation systems that treat wastewater adequately. Communities without sanitation often lack sustainable energy access; they have to resort to using biomass fuels for cooking, causing deforestation and respiratory diseases that predominantly affect women.

WASE carried out an initial assessment of sanitation and energy systems in developing communities, assessing the most suitable technologies in 2016. The study revealed an opportunity to recover resources from the waste in a sustainable way according to circular economy principles using Electro-Methanogenic Reactors (EMR). EMRs are an emerging technology that has shown promise for future wastewater treatment. The research has progressed to find multiple technologies within this field, with EMRs being the most commercially viable. Organisations are designing systems for industrialised communities using expensive catalysts and membranes. However, WASE is developing low-cost electrode materials and removed expensive components, making the technology economically viable for developing and remote regions. 

WASE's focus will be humanitarian agencies, local and state governments and utility and water companies, initially focusing on India and Kenya. These markets have been assessed with the greatest need to provide decentralised wastewater treatment for under-served communities.  Targeting organisations at this level will allow us to work with fewer customers but enable us to reach a higher number of users, increasing impact.

WASE have developed the WASE-EMR, a decentralised, modular wastewater treatment system that incorporates an electro-methanogenic reactor (EMR) to convert biological waste into water for irrigation, fertiliser and a carbon-neutral source of fuel.  WASE-EMR is a 1m3 cell can scaleup from communities to  large institutions like prisons or schools. The system has been developed around a circular economy to recover the following resources: energy, in the form of methane; nutrients, to produce fertilisers; and water that can be reused locally for either irrigation or as grey water depending on user needs. WASE-EMR has been developed using low-cost materials that can adapt to local environments, providing consistent treatment and energy production in different climates and increasing resilience and stability, which is essential in remote and developing communities.   

A remote monitoring system and control system is integrated into the cells, enabling WASE to monitor each cell remotely to measure water quality and biogas production and create alerts if there is a system fault. This enables local engineers to be contacted via SMS, giving a detail of the issue so it can be easily fixed or replaced. After talking to different humanitarian agencies that have been involved in the development process (International Lifeline Fund, Sanitation and Health Right India (SHRI), Mercy Corps and Leading Humanitarian Agencies), we know that remote monitoring is key to reduce downtime and system failure that can result in inadequate treatment and reduced trust with the product. 

We aim to target schools first due to a need for adequate facilities for school children to reduce the spread of diseases and provide adequate facilities for girls who often will stop attending school during their menstruation cycle, impeding on their education.  

The system's impact goes beyond just the environmental benefits and includes economic and social benefits to communities. Part of the Innovate UK project will be to develop training programs for engineers and entrepreneurs to sell, install, operate and maintain the systems. For larger community or institutional systems, the higher biogas production will enable new markets to be created around biogas distribution through gas bags, removing the need to use coal or biomass for cooking, which results in household air pollution. Organic fertilisers can be produced, reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers and removing the price fluctuations in the global fertiliser market that can make fertiliser unaffordable at times to local farmers.  

WASE offers a turnkey solution to decentralised wastewater management. The WASE EMR is suitable to treat small to large volumes of wastewater, generating biogas, and recovering water for reuse and nutrients to produce fertilisers. The affordable, modular EMR cell is unique in the unit size and technical capabilities it can offer at £4500. 

• Treatment 10 times quicker than Anaerobic Digestion (AD)
• 30% more waste removal 
• Biogas Methane Concentrations up to 80% 
• Economic Savings ROI in 2-3 years 
• Reducing pollution and deforestation by 40>#/span###
• Recovering nutrients and increasing crop yields by 20>#/span###
• Simple maintenance with remote monitoring

Biodigestion can contribute to addressing these challenges. However, AD systems take 30-60 days (compared to our 0.5-6 days) to treat waste, increasing the system size. AD requires temperatures between 35-37C whereas the WASE EMR operates at 10-40C, removing the need to heat the system and reducing energy demands. One of the most significant improvements over AD is the higher methane fraction; we generate 70-80% compared to 50-60% in AD. A higher percentage gives the gas a better energy value. The WASE EMR has a 20% increase in gas generation, making an attractive offer and creating new opportunities where AD wasn’t previously feasible.

The system combines electrochemical and biological processes to treat wastewater, using EMR technology. The system can replace aeration and AD processes to treat high-strength wastewater (WW) and sludge. Sustainable sources of electricity (e.g. solar) can power the small amount of power required for each cell. 

The EMR is the main module that will be the primary/secondary treatment for the wastewater process. After treatment the water can be safely discharged back into the environment meeting EU wastewater discharge standards. If the system is used for sanitation and black water, a second stage module will ensure all bacteria are killed before discharge. The full module will include a 10W solar panel and battery connected to a remote monitoring system. The remote monitoring system will report back daily on the biogas (volume and compositions), electrode performance (current density) and water quality (pH). The remote monitoring will enable WASE to ensure the system is operating correctly and will alert local engineers if there is an issue. Each module has been designed to be plug and play with internal components easily interchangeable to ensure ease of maintenance. 

Sanitation and wastewater infrastructure are vital for communities to grow. With poor health associated to poor sanitation it can cause devastating effect on communities meaning children missing school and workers unable to work. Poor sanitation predominantly effects women, who often have to spend weeks a year finding a safe place to go to toilet, have to look after the elderly and children who are sick as a result of pathogenic diseases.  Implementing effective wastewater treatment and management can affect all of the above to create significant benefits. With every dollar invested in sanitation generating a five dollar return. We believe that our system not only does this but creates further benefits from the sustainable energy generated reducing reliance on biomass for cooking. Which reduces indoor air pollution and in cases where fire wood is used give the communities more time to pursue other value adding tasks like education and work. 

We have installed a pilot system in Brindisi, Italy in a base that was funded by a global organization. The system connects directly to toilets and treats the waste onsite; the biogas generated is then used for cooking. Leading on from the pilot, we’ve recently been awarded an Innovate UK - Energy Catalyst 6 grant. The project istesting the WASE EMR next to the Dadaab refugee camp to treat wastewater for 100 people. The treated wastewater and fertiliser are being reused for irrigation to increase local farmers’ crop yields, and the biogas is being used to provide cooking fuel for communities. 

We are now part of the Exeter Velocities nurture program where we are developing a pilot within the UK around the agriculture and food and drink manufacturers to build our industrial market opportunities. 

We have obtained three letters of intent (LOI) from organisations, which have led to WASE submitting a quote for a 5000-person treatment plant that is under review. WASE has made significant traction reaching a global market and generating customer leads; we were recently invited to the World Bank to develop projects with their country teams so that we can provide sanitation and sustainable energy to all. 

We are currently serving 10 people. In the next year we will be serving between 1000 and 5000 people. Our estimates for the next five years are that we will serve between 60,000 to 130,000 people.

Over the next 12 months we are looking to validate our technology and business model assumptions. The main points of validation at scale are: 

• Social acceptance
• Supply chain to customer
• Supply chain of WASE procurement
• Are we resolving the customer’s pain points (sanitation and energy access)
• Methane concentrations
• Biogas volumes
• Hydraulic retention time
• COD reduction
• Maintenance requirements 
• Installation and start-up plan
• Pathogen removal 

a.    Development or collaboration for tertiary treatments

We are going to do this in large part through an awarded innovate UK grant to pilot a decentralised wastewater treatment plant next to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya serving 100 people. We are also looking to hire a local business development manager in Kenya to validate EMR as a technology and its outputs in resolving our customer’s pain points. 

In conjunction with the above we will be developing the design for manufacture of our products. 

This will then put is in place for series A investment (late 2020) to go to our first manufacturing run and allow us to serve our beachhead markets of Kenya and Bihar, India. These markets have been determined to be the ones which could provide the most impact while allowing for ease of expansion. Kenya is part of the East African Community and Bihar allows for access to nearby regions of India. 

Gaining funding and investment is a barrier as angel investors and venture capital groups are less eager to invest unless we start to target more established markets. We have accessed small grants to pilot the technology, but when we plan to scale and distribute globally, large capital investment will be required. 

Another challenge is the engineering requirements for maintenance. 

The social acceptability of reusing treated water and the use of products produced from its treatment are also a barrier. 

To tackle these barriers, we are exploring business models that have proven successful in other technologies, like solar micropayment solutions. We will then develop a suitable model for our technology and pilot different variations to validate the business model and build investor confidence.  

We are developing manuals and implementing the remote monitoring to simplify the process and give details of the exact issue to the engineers.

We have carried out focus groups with farmers in Bihar who are keen to test, and we are going to expand this research. As part of the innovate UK grant in Kenya will hire a business development manager locally (in Kenya) to further validate our assumptions. We are currently scrubbing and dewatering biogas and are locating storage of biogas separately to the treatment units. The location of the biogas storage is on advisement of our partners.   

Full time: 3

Part-time: 1

Interns: 4 dependent on availability

Advisors as subject experts: 5

WASE was founded by CEO Thomas Fudge in February 2017. He has worked in international project management, is a PhD researcher and has previous start-up experience. Our CTO, Will Gambier, has a background in material science, and Llyr Williams, COO, has extensive experience in waste-to-energy solutions, water and agriculture. Also, Vikki Bolam, new to the team, has extensive knowledge and experience within the sanitation sector. 

Together, they lead an interdisciplinary, technical and business minded team, with knowledge from implementing international development projects, designing, building and operating waste-to-energy solutions.

A leading Humanitarian Agency, 

-       Starting 2ndof 3 pilot stages with end goal to provide sanitation as part of their school feeding programme 

International Lifeline Fund, USA, .   

-       LOI to serve the BidiBidi refugee camp in Uganda

SHRI, Bihar, India,

-       To provide EMR to increase capacity of AD treatment tanks for community toilet blocks

Exeter Velocities, UK, Gauri Kangai 

-       Pilot proposal accepted for brewery

Our economic model is based on product sales and recurring sales from spare parts. Our WASE-EMR units cost €3000 to manufacture with a retail price of €6000. Each unit can treat wastewater for up to 40 people (€150pp). The main spare component will retail at £150 each. The product life span will be 10 years and will require approximately 5 new electrode components; other parts will also be sold. 

We focus on humanitarian agencies, local and state governments and utility and water companies, which have the greatest need to provide decentralised wastewater treatment for under-served communities. Within the UK, we have secured a pilot with Exeter Velocities, are planning a pilot with Severn Trent, and are in early discussions with Water Innovation Network. Globally, we are working with both the private sector and NGO’s. We have a system proposal in place for Suntory PepsiCo in Vietnam and are in communications with Bold Energy to work in schools, prisons, and military settings. We have received letters of intent from both Mercy Corps, to roll out the system in refugee camps, and SHRI, for a £150,000 project proposal that will serve 1000-5000 people. We have a pilot project funded to install systems in 83 schools in Kenya, and we have a pending collaborative grant with Uganda community school systems. 

Currently we are pre-commercialization and have up to now survived on equity free grants and competitions. We are in the seed round of investment to raise £300k through equity investment and are match funding that with £260k of awarded grants, completions, VAT and R&D returns. This is to validate assumption as above and to develop design for manufacture based on those validations.

We will go to series A for manufacturing in late 2020 and will be aiming to raise £2.5M. This will take us to commercialization, and we will then be sustained through sales (as below) in our beachhead markets and immediate vicinity to them.

Series B will be explored in 2022 for market expansion into the rest of Africa, S & E Asia  and South America.

We’ve developed local partners to distribute and operate our system, focusing on Kenya and India initially and have 3 letters of intent to install the system.  

Year 1 - 50 Units (2020) 

Year 2 - 250

Year 3 - 1200

Year 4 - 2000

We are applying to solve as we believe that it can offer new opportunities to build partnerships with other organisations that align with our goals to provide sanitation and energy to all. 

We believe partnering with organisations that have the distribution network and capacity to maintain our solutions on a global level can help us deliver our vision. Organisations such as Velia and Tata would be ideal partners for the operations and manufacturing.