Why EMC technology wins economically

As part of my research into my investment I had a friend review and comment on the tech behind EMC. He is currently in his final year of a Ph.D. In microbiology and thought it would be worth sharing his opinions on the process and why it is superior to current waste water practices.

"So what I gather is that the advantage in this technology lies in the oxygen permeable membrane. So during the wastewater treatment process microorganisms are used to break down the biodegradable organic compounds. But for them to do this they require a lot of oxygen (Biochemical Oxygen Demand, BOD) to grow and continue to breakdown the organic compounds, otherwise they will just die off or become dormant. Usually this is supplied through pumping air through the wastewater, which accounts for a large portion of the plants energy requirements. This membrane transfers oxygen through diffusion, which just means the oxygen wants to be at the same concentration on both sides of the membrane, and since the microbes are using the oxygen on the water side, the oxygen continues to cross the membrane into the water. This doesn’t require any pumping so therefore it saves on energy costs.The other advantage of the membrane is that immediately on the water side there is an abundance of oxygen as it crosses over. This causes the bacteria to adhere to the membrane where the most oxygen is and form a biofilm. A biofilm is a film that bacteria form which allows for easy transfer of nutrients between cells allowing for maximum growth, therefore once a biofilm occurs the rate of breakdown increases. This biofilm also serves to breakdown nitrogen in the form of ammonia. The degrading of organic compounds causes a build up of ammonia, so to remove ammonia it needs to be converted to nitrate then to nitrogen gas which is released into the atmosphere. The conversion of ammonia to nitrate requires plenty of oxygen which is performed by bacteria closest to the membrane where oxygen concentration is highest while the conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gas is an anaerobic process that is performed by the bacteria furtherest away from the membrane where there is no oxygen present. In a general process where the water is aerated by air pumps there wouldn’t be a lot of space in the water that was completely anaerobic and so the nitrate to nitrogen reaction would be prevented to some extent.So from that, this technology saves money by reducing energy costs as well as provides an efficient system for breaking down waste products."

Hopefully this helps some others to understand the benefits of this technology