Two engineers from Stanford University engineers say they’re working on a wastewater treatment process that would replace conventional aeration with an anaerobic process that would yield combustible nitrous oxide – which could be burned in a rocket thruster.
Craig Criddle, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, is teaming with Brian Cantwell, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, who designs rocket thrusters that run on nitrous oxide. Their goal is to make wastewater treatment “energy-neutral and emissions-free,” according to an article at physorg.com.
Their premise is that aeration is costly and energy-intensive process. Instead, they propose to create a low-oxygen environment that favors bacteria that produce nitrous oxide. They have shown that in the lab they can produce nitrous oxide from wastewater under low-oxygen conditions. The gas then can be burned in a rocket thruster, yielding pure nitrogen and oxygen, and releasing significant energy.
“A single thruster about the size of a basketball could potentially consume every ounce of nitrous oxide produced by a typical treatment plant,” Cantwell says in the physorg.com article. The process also releases substantial amounts of methane, which could be used to power the treatment plant.
You can find out more about the proposed technology at http://www.physorg.com/news199366527.html.
