The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 38

BREAKING NEWS: VANC0UVKRSUN.COM SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2014 B.C. INNOVATION WASTE WATER Metro firm races to tap demand for better treatment solution Water Technologies draws venture capital to its 'high-efficiency oxidation machine' D2 It BUSINESS The science Here's how the invention by materials engineer Colleen Legzdins works FIONA HUGHES SPECIAL TO THE SUN DC POWER axine cell technology INFLUENT WASTE WATER COD aim 1 if The hydroxyl neutralizes toxic chemicals in the waste water and breaks them down to their non-toxic components water, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. "What you want for these really challenging chemicals in waste water is something that is extremely rapid, something that will grab onto these molecules and break them down into their basic building blocks," Rhone said. 'Think of these (waste) chemicals as long-chain molecules that are then exposed to hydroxyl radicals. The hydroxyl radicals just grab onto these molecules and basically break them down into hydrogen, water and carbon dioxide.

It's an extremely effective way of doing this without using any chemicals and without producing any other concentrate." The water that comes out the other end is not intended to be drinkable, but it is now clean enough to be reused in the industrial process, thus reducing the need for freshwater. in the world at treating industrial waste water," said Rhone, noting the company, located on the main UBC campus, has grown from one employee two years ago (Legzdins), to 15 full-time staffers today. With Chrysalix as a major investor, Rhone's optimism may not be not out of place. Given Chrysalix's global reputation in clean-tech investment, it wouldn't be surprising to see more investment flow Axine's way, said UBC business professor Thomas Hellmann. An investment from Chrysa Every year in North America, an estimated 85 cubic kilometres of waste water is generated by homes, business and industries.

That's 85 trillion litres. Water-intensive industries such as the energy sector, chemical, steel and pulp and paper plants are responsible for a large percentage of the waste water. The oil industry for example, which is often criticized for processing more water than oil, can produce four million litres of waste water a day at an average heavy-oil recovery steam-assisted gravity drainage operation, such as those in the Alberta 'oilsands. A typical steel or chemical plant can generate anywhere from 75,000 to 750,000 litres of waste water a day. Treating this water is costly, intensive and typically involves harsh chemicals, perhaps incineration, evaporation or even injection into "deep wells.

None are 100 per fcent satisfactory. And it is getting costlier as industries face regulatory and social "pressures around water security and reuse. Chrysalix EVC, a Vancouver-based venture capital firm that "invests in sustainable innovations in four of the world's largest industries (oil and gas, mining and metals, electric power, and chemicals) believes a local company is on track to solve the multibillion-dollar waste water problem cheaply, safely and efficiently. i That is why Chrysalix is investing in Axine Water Technologies, founded by materials engineer Colleen Legzdins and headed by Jonathan Rhone. "Cleaning up the increasing volumes of waste water across these industries represents a huge opportunity area for innovation," said Chrysalix Wal van Lierop, who was sdrawn early on to the potential of Axine's proprietary technology.

The treatment of industrial waste water has seen explosive growth in the last five years to the tune of least $35 billion year worldwide, said Axine president and CEO Rhone. "Most of the analysts who cover this space are seeing a tremendous increase in demand for new technologies to treat industrial water not just in North America and Europe but also in places like China, India and the Middle East where economies are under pressure to improve mmmim TREATED EFFLUENT C02H20 sludge, and at one-fifth the cost of conventional and existing technologies. Axine, a name Legzdins chose, is Greek for "friendly water." Thanks to major investments from Chrysalix, California-based Roda Group and the National Research Council of Canada, Axine is positioning itself to be a world leader in treating the toxic organics, ammonia, sulphides and other pollutants in waste water. Legzdins' proprietary electrolytic technology isn't intended to replace water treatment plants, but to seamlessly plug into existing facilities. "One of the advantages of this technology is it's extremely wis ISsa In the Axine process, waste water is treated via a single-step electrochemical oxidation process.

oxidation machine" is a 2,000 square centimetre electrolytic membrane that resembles a sheet of paper. It is inserted between an anode and a cathode. Waste water flows across the surface of the anode. Electricity is applied to the anode. In the presence of the electric charge and the proprietary catalyst coating that Legzdins invented, some of the water is broken down into an aggressive "hydroxy! radicals" a molecule consisting of one oxygen and one hydrogen atom.

"This is pretty much the most reactive oxidation agent that you can CEO Jonathan Rhone explained. "Oxidants are things like chlorine, or ozone or hydrogen peroxide chemical agents that are used to react with things we don't want." The earliest applications for us will likely be in the chemical and steel industries. COLLEEN LEGZDINS MATERIALS ENGINEER AND FOUNDER OF AXINE WATER TECHNOLOGIES "This technology would not have been possible 10 years ago," said Rhone. "It's very simple to operate but based on decades of advances in materials sciences." Axine has recently raised more financing to set up pilot plants in 2015 for "on-site deployment." Commercial installations should start in 2016. Rhone wouldn't reveal any company names or locations for the plants, but said they are customers in the chemical and steel industries, waste management and oil and gas sector.

He is bullish on the company's future. "Within five years, we hope to achieve real commercial success and to be the leading company balloons away, and break the bacteria apart so they can be turned into more biogas." FortisBC currently has about 6,600 customers, residential and commercial, who pay a premium to recei ve the company's biomethane product. The cost of putting one giga-joule of biomethane energy into the Fortis system is about $14, FortisBC's Vice-President Doug Stout says. Regular natural gas is five to six dollars. The cost is a higher energy bill, but not substantially so.

"What we offer is a ten per cent blend, so you buy 10 per cent biomethane and 90 per cent regular natural gas," Stout said. The customers who are willing to pay the difference are environmentally conscious consumers who buy hybrid cars, Stout says. "A company might look at it from the perspective of how they want to position themselves in the marketplace." The City of Richmond is one customer who is interested in the supply coming out of Lulu Island, as is the City of Vancouver. Waste water contacts anode only No supporting electrolyte Low cost catalysts No electrode fouling or deterioration Operating method low energy consumption There is a huge focus on reducing cost and liabilities associated with water acquisition and waste water treatment. JONATHAN RHONE AXINE PRESIDENT AND CEO water quality," said Rhone.

"There is a huge focus on reducing cost and liabilities associated with water acquisition and waste water treatment." Legzdins, who spent several years working at Ballard Power until 2009, wanted to apply her knowledge of electrochemistry and new materials in fuel cells to the clean-tech sector, said Rhone. Her particular interest was the hard-to-treat toxic chemicals that end up in waste water. Legzdins spent two years in her basement and in a borrowed lab building a scalable device that can treat waste water without the use of chemicals and without producing plant will biomethane, which will also be sold to the energy supplier. "We create biomethane at that plant now," said Jeff Car-michael, Division Manager Utility Research and Innovation for Metro Vancouver. "But we don't need it all.

We need it for heating the plant, but in the summer the plant doesn't use much heat." Through the project, Metro expects to generate enough product to power four to five hundred homes. The plant will pay for itself about 20 years after the biomethane project begins or "before the equipment runs down," Carmichael said. The plant is expected to begin producing and selling the usable biomethane in 2016. The Lulu Island project marks the first time a waste water treatment plant in B.C. will put biomethane into a natural gas distribution system which delivers fuel to homes.

It's part of the regional district's long-term vision "to recover as many resources as possible in liquid waste before it is returned to the environment," Utilities Committee Chair Darrell Mussatto said in a February 2014 Metro H2OUT modular," explained Rhone. "We will manufacture modules that are four feet by four feet by four feet. These modules will have hundreds of different cells. Depending on the volume of waste water that a customer needs to treat, we can provide however many modules they need might need. The earliest applications for us will likely be in the chemical and steel industries because these are smaller volumes." Rhone describes the process as straightforward, but only possible because of significant advances with membranes, catalyst coatings and plastics combined with leaps in electrochemistry.

"When you treat waste water, you generate all kinds of organisms, bacteria mostly, in massive quantities," said Rob Ste-phenson, Chief Technical Officer at Paradigm. The bacteria "are like tiny water balloons," Stephenson says. Usually, they're set aside in what is called a clarifier before being hauled away. "What we do is rip those water CELL 1 'fa A A -A" i'N turn sludge into biogas gold lix is a "huge validation," said Hellmann, who is familiar with Chrysalix but not Axine. "The important thing to know about Chrysalix is that they are a global venture capital firm that happens to be located in Vancouver.

They look at opportunities worldwide and if they invest in a local company it means that local company is at a level that many other global venture capitalists will be interested in." Hellmann said Chrysalix's model is partly based on working with industry incumbents and giants in the industry. "It should attract the interest of established players, which is particularly interesting in all these clean-tech deals," he said. Renewable gas Residents, industries and businesses in Metro Vancouver produce about one billion litres of waste water each day. About 80 per cent of that comes from our homes. Metro Vancouver has five waste-water treatment plants.

Most biomethane produced at the plants is captured to heat and in some cases generate the electric power needed for the plants. The new Lulu Island WastewaterTreatment Plant project is designed to increase biomethane production for in-plant use and to send to FortisBC. Metro Vancouver estimates it will be abie to sell enough methane to FortisBC to power 400 single-family homes. When complete, the project will reduce the amount of GHG emissions by about 2,000 tonnes per year the equivalent of the tailpipes of about 500 cars during a year of driving. II: SM'Mi'S .77 Sir -i E' 1- jsu av RICHMOND Treatment SHAWN CONNER SPECIAL TO THE SUN A new project at a Metro Vancouver waste water treatment facility is going to turn waste into gold.

Or, more accurately, gas. Also known as biogas or biomethane, renewable natural gas is made using biomass, which could be anything from animal manure to tree clippings to human waste water. The biomethane produced at waste water plants during the treatment process is used to heat the plants, while the excess or flare is burned off so as not to be released into the environment. Methane is about 20 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Turning biomass into biomethane reduces the methane released into the atmosphere.

Under the new $i3-million project at Lulu Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in Richmond, the biomethane that is produced will be cleaned up and sold to FortisBC. The plant will use locally-based technology to produce more FortisBC currently has two suppliers of renewable natural gas: one in Fraser Valley and one in Salmon Arm, above. Lulu Island will be the third, with four others in development. Vancouver press release. The project will make use of technology from Vancouver-based Paradigm Environmental Technologies.

The company's patented MicroSludge technology came out Nobel Prize-winning scientist Michael Smith's biotechnology lab at UBC. The technology treats the sludge that is a byproduct of treating the waste water..