Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

A man in New Delhi, India, drinks water from a tap near a sewage drain. AP Photo/Kevin Frayer

An Athlone company is helping solve a big problem for the world's growing population

Oxymem has overhauled waste-treatment processes which have barely changed in a century.

IF PREDICTIONS ARE right, an extra 2 billion people will be living on the planet within the next three decades.

That population growth, from an estimated 7.3 billion today to the United Nations’ forecast figure of 9.6 billion by 2050, will bring with it many challenges – not least how to effectively deal with the waste produced from all those bodies.

But Athlone company OxyMem is helping to solve that problem with a wastewater-processing system it claims is up to four times as efficient as conventional processes, which have barely changed over the past century.

Managing director Wayne Byrne told TheJournal.ie that sewage processing typically consumed up to 3% of developed nations’ electricity supplies and energy costs were the “number-one issue” for councils and companies that needed to process liquid waste.

“The last 100 years the developed world has relied on biological wastewater treatment … there hasn’t been a lot of innovation over that time,” he said.

The process suffers because typically 70% of the energy used in oxygen delivery is lost to the atmosphere – so it is very wasteful and it is very energy intensive.”

Sewage treatment plant A typical sewage treatment plant eutrophication&hypoxia eutrophication&hypoxia

How it works

Sewage has traditionally been broken down by pumping bubbles into waste water in order to feed oxygen to the bacteria used to process the material.

Under Oxymem’s system, the bacteria instead grow on a network of filters which are supplied directly with oxygen while waste passes through them.

The process not only saves energy, but produces half the wast “sludge” at the end of the process, the company says.

Here’s how that looks (when explained using cartoon bacteria):

OxyMem / YouTube

Byrne said other companies, including the water arm of giant industrial conglomerate GE, had been developing similar systems, but Oxymem had been the first to bring the technology to market.

“I take comfort in knowing that GE is telling the market that this will be a mainstream offering in the near future,” he said.

As populations grow, it will be more and more difficult to maintain the high standard of water processing that people require.”

Byrne OxyMem boss Wayne Byrne Imagine H2O / YouTube Imagine H2O / YouTube / YouTube

Why Athlone – not China

The company, which began life as a UCD spin-out after the technology was in development for over a decade, has already been on the receiving end of a string of awards, including most recently as the “growth stage” winner at the US Imagine H2O Infrastructure Challenge.

OxyMem has raised about €2 million in funding and now employs 30 people, with a dozen installations under its belt across Ireland, the UK and Spain since its factory came on-line in January last year.

Byrne said the company initially considered outsourcing its production but discovered it was near-impossible to find a factory to make the expensive and highly-specialised membranes it needed.

If you had asked me about this system three or four years ago, I would have told you that I would be going to find a contract manufacturer to make this somewhere in Asia,” he said.

Oxymem1 OxyMem OxyMem

But the company instead developed production in-house with its skilled local workforce and is now aggressively expanding the output from its Co Westmeath base.

Byrne said the company was targeting €1.5 million in sales this year – a fivefold increase on 2014.

That means more people in the factory and more opportunity to serve the international market,” he said.

This month, as part of TheJournal.ie’s ongoing small and medium enterprise (SME) focus, we look at business and the environment, and making enterprise more sustainable.

To view other SME stories from our collection, click here.

READ: Power isn’t quite paying like it used to for ESB >

Close
16 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tap Solny
    Favourite Tap Solny
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 4:35 PM

    It is good to read about success stories such as this.

    150
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Keelan O'neill
    Favourite Keelan O'neill
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 4:40 PM

    Don’t worry Tap the feel good factor will be ruined by a deluge of comments about Irish Water, Enda Kenny, bankers, EU, IMF. I think I got everything there.

    68
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Fiannaoicht
    Favourite Fiannaoicht
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 4:46 PM

    Developers

    47
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jason Bourne
    Favourite Jason Bourne
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 7:13 PM

    Bankers.

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Doyle
    Favourite Stephen Doyle
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 6:47 PM

    I think contraception is the answer

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Sands
    Favourite Michael Sands
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 5:44 PM

    People will not stop having children and this will lead to more wars, famines and disease with a grab for land. This grab for land will result in animals attacking more people, new diseases, more fighting and eventually more global warming that will led to more destruction of life on this planet.
    It will eventually explode and humanity will be at the loosing end of things, as the seas rise and there is more flooding then what, will big companies use the excuse of GM crops then as well as forceful land grabs of farmers to grow these crops or will humanity in those areas of the world be destroyed cholera first?
    Because they can’t keep it in their pants?

    31
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian Ward
    Favourite Brian Ward
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 8:04 PM

    Jaysus, you’re a bundle of fun aren’t you!

    29
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Al Ca
    Favourite Al Ca
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 9:30 PM

    Here Micheal, if you have a few minutes Hans Rosling explains…..
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

    7
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Sands
    Favourite Michael Sands
    Report
    Mar 30th 2015, 4:40 PM

    Carbon footprint? The human race is very destructive too…

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Sands
    Favourite Michael Sands
    Report
    Mar 30th 2015, 4:41 PM

    No harm in bringing to awareness that the world and its resources are limited?

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Niall Donnelly
    Favourite Niall Donnelly
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 4:51 PM

    Will they be helping Irish Water?

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Keelan O'neill
    Favourite Keelan O'neill
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 4:53 PM

    For free or should they charge?

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Daisy Chainsaw
    Favourite Daisy Chainsaw
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 5:42 PM

    Probably not. That would mean IW paying for it to be done properly… And we can’t have that!!

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Sands
    Favourite Michael Sands
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 5:46 PM

    That will not get rid of the chemicals found in water either, ultra violet light can get rid of those as well as killing off bacteria as well?

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Malvolio32
    Favourite Malvolio32
    Report
    Mar 29th 2015, 6:20 PM

    Uv light will not get rid of chemicals in the water?

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Sands
    Favourite Michael Sands
    Report
    Mar 30th 2015, 4:38 PM

    Chemical as found in urine such as medications, I didn’t mean industrial chemicals, lol.

    3
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.