Closing cycles

Closing cycles

Mirroring self-purification in nature (biomimicry), our innovative Aquafarm concept uses chains of organisms to ‘polish’ effluent and produce high-added value components.

Examples of projects

  • Bioremediation: AquaFarm
  • Fytoremediation: HELOFYT, Monitoring Floating Life, Natuurvriendelijke oevers
  • Zooremediation: INNOWATOR

Highlights

Floating treatment wetlands

Floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) may provide an appealing alternative to the more conventional (sub)surface flow wetlands to solve problems associated with eutrophication in urban surface waters, because they do not claim additional space.

We showed that total removal of TN and TP from the tanks planted with Iris was 54 times higher for TN and 10 times higher for TP removal compared to the control treatment. FTWs planted with Iris can be applied in a temperate climate to overcome problems with excessive algae growth in surface waters.

Not only floating wetlands also both wetlands with helophytes purifying water or floodplain or swamps either with helophytes or with willows and alder can purify, especially run off from adjacent agricultural land. A new, innovative approach of managed bioremediation is termed AquaFarm. The concept behind AquaFarm is based on optimising monocultures of organisms in a cascade of basins to purify waste water while at the same time the organisms are yielded to gain valuable components, like proteins, for multiple use in industry.

Major publications

Publications, tools, presentations