Israel Clean Tech Fair

Can bacteria produce electricity? Can an airplane make rain on a dry day? Our correspondents in Israel show us how this could soon become a reality.

Advanced technologies at the Clean-tech 2009 Exhibition in Tel Aviv offer hope for overcoming the environmental crisis.

We know that treating wastewater requires energy, but now we learn that the process can actually produce energy.

[Ronen Shecter, CTO Emefcy]:
"The principle is a new technology called macrobiotics fuel cells. What we have are many small cells with a cathode and anode. The anodes are biologically active; we combine electrochemical treatment with biological treatment. We expect the product to be marketed in a year, maybe less. The general principle of this cycle system is that it will produce enough electricity to cover its own consumption in any case and in many cases of industrial wastewater treatment, what we have is an excess of energy, an excess of electricity in the amount of hundreds of KW that could be stored in the electric grid."

What about lack of rain due to climate change?

Well, the Israeli startup Aquasoft has invented a solar airplane that can irrigate the fields.

[Mayer Fitussi, Aqua Soft Entrepreneur]:
"This system is called harvesting water from air. It can be adapted to a plane without a pilot. The higher the plane is flying, the more water can be harvested. The water from air is produced according to a well-known technology. What we did was to combine this technology together with solar, wind, heating and cooling energy to make the production more efficient and much cheaper. We already finished a feasibility study and we are looking for an investor to finance the building of a pilot of the plane system."

This is the thirteenth year that the clean-tech exhibition in Israel is showcasin advanced green technologies.

Category:

Science & Technology

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• bacteria
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• Tel Aviv
• environmental
• macrobiotics
• fuel
• cells

[energyalt56]

China has this 12 years ago, they use a farm scale with plastic verticle panel walls, few hundred feet long

But don't know how long the plastic panel last, the surface become dull due to sun and rain, may be now they make in glass...

[avivamiri]

In the last few of years there is a lot of activity in the field of wastewater treatment,

this is a great solution for taking advantge of wastewater as a resource.

[r0she1]

This company does leading edge research in wastewater treatment technology: the CTO guy says it is not yet market ready. BTW - they are not the only ones in this field: check out Dutch company Triqua or the University of Queensland or Bruce Logan from Penn State University. All selling snake oil?

[bkvs]

It is not yet close to a possibility to get any substantial powers from MFCs/ bacteria as the CTO guy is claiming, looks more like they are selling snake oil to average joes.

[Kurtlane]

Wow! The first story about bacteria producing electricity is really interesting. But I don't get it. Where is the electricity coming from? Can someone explain it in more detail.