Good news! That is a head scratcher! 😊 What a beautiful name Daphnia!
"... Scientists have discovered a method to harness Daphnia, one of the several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called water fleas, to provide a low-cost and low-carbon way of removing pesticides, and pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals from wastewater. This approach also avoids the byproducts of standard wastewater treatment. ...
In a previous study published last year, the researchers showed that Daphnia can remove 7 out of 16 pharmaceuticals more efficiently than algae and bacteria. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• A scalable, low-cost, low-carbon, and retrofittable tertiary water treatment biotechnology for the removal of persistent chemical pollutants
• At laboratory scale, removal efficiency is 90% for diclofenac, 60% for arsenic, 59% for atrazine and 50% for PFOS.
• Sustained removal efficiency of diclofenac was validated over four weeks at prototype scale.
• The Daphnia-based technology has technical, commercial and sustainability advantages over established and emerging treatments.
Abstract
... State-of-the-art technologies for the reduction of persistent chemical pollutants in wastewater typically impose high operational and energy costs and potentially generate toxic by-products (e.g., bromate from ozonation). Nature-base solutions are preferred to these technologies for their lower environmental impact. However, so far, bio-based tertiary wastewater treatments have been inefficient for industrial-scale applications. Moreover, they often demand significant financial investment and large infrastructure, undermining sustainability objectives. Here, we present a scalable, low-cost, low-carbon, and retrofittable nature-inspired solution to remove persistent chemical pollutants (pharmaceutical, pesticides and industrial chemicals). We showed Daphnia's removal efficiency of individual chemicals and chemicals from wastewater at laboratory scale ranging between 50 % for PFOS and 90 % for diclofenac. We validated the removal efficiency of diclofenac at prototype scale, showing sustained performance over four weeks in outdoor seminatural conditions. A techno-commercial analysis on the Daphnia-based technology suggested several technical, commercial and sustainability advantages over established and emerging treatments at comparable removal efficiency, benchmarked on available data on individual chemicals. Further testing of the technology is underway in open flow environments holding real wastewater. The technology has the potential to improve the quality of wastewater effluent, meeting requirements to produce water appropriate for reuse in irrigation, industrial application, and household use. By preventing persistent chemicals from entering waterways, this technology has the potential to maximise the shift to clean growth, enabling water reuse, reducing resource depletion and preventing environmental pollution."
Waterfleas hold key to cleaner environment and better human health (primary news source) A novel way of removing chemical pollutants from wastewater could see the humble waterflea helping to create cleaner rivers and waterways.
Harnessing water fleas for water reclamation: A nature-based tertiary wastewater treatment technology (open access)
Daphnia will you be processing my wastewater in the future? 😊
Graphical abstract:
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