Chemical-Free Water Filtration System Inspired by Forests

Innovation: Industry

Biolytix

2011

Image: Andrew Coelho / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Detoxification/Purification of Air/Water/Waste

Ecosystems must be effective at cleaning air, water, and waste because so much of what is in the air, water, and waste is valuable to organisms as resources. In contrast to functions that detoxify or purify at the organism level, this is at a larger scale. To be effective at the ecosystem level, it isn’t the individual efforts of a few organisms that detoxifies and purifies, but the actions of a wide diversity of organisms each contributing to the whole. For example, as water flows through an ecosystem, either aboveground or in the soil, a diversity of organisms take different actions to slow it down, capture excess nutrients from it, and break down harmful chemicals into more benign ones.

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Physically Break Down Non-living Materials

Nonliving materials are not carbon-based; that is, they are not and never have been living organs or tissues. However, they can be the products of living organisms, such as the calcium carbonate materials found in seashells (excluding organic compounds included in them). Physically breaking down nonliving materials requires mechanical means. While feeding, some living systems encounter very hard nonliving materials that can hinder access to the food. To address this, their teeth or other structures often contain minerals to maximize their hardness. For example, a marine organism called the chiton eats algae. But to access the algae, it must scrape it from rocks. To do so, it uses a special structure made of a material that’s stronger than the rock.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Solids

Some living systems must secure solid particles such as sediment, usually to keep the particles from hindering their health or activity. The most common way in which they do this is through filtering. To be effective, a filtering system must be appropriate to the sizes of solid particles to be captured and must capture only what is needed. It must also be effective in the appropriate media–air, water, or sometimes solids like soil. An example is mangroves, which are trees that grow along ocean coasts. Their root system slows down and settles sediment out of the water, building up soil to support the mangrove ecosystem.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Organisms

Many living systems must secure organisms for food. But just as one living system must capture its prey to survive, its prey must escape to survive. This results in capture and avoidance strategies that include trickery, speed, poisons, constructed traps, and more. For example, a carnivorous plant called the pitcher plant has leaves formed into a tube that collect water. Long, slippery hairs within the tube face downward. When insects enter the tube seeking nectar, they lose their footing and slide inside, unable to climb out and escape being eaten and digested by the plant.

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Brochures

Biolytix Biopod Information
2.2 MB PDF

Patents

The Biolytix BioPod is a waste treatment system that uses organisms to convert raw sewage and wastewater into high quality irrigation water.

Benefits

Chemical-free
Easy to clean
Reduced costs
Reduced noise
Odor-free

Applications

Irrigation systems
Residential water treatment

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation

Bioutilization

Microorganisms
Tiger worms

The Challenge

Agriculture is an essential source of food, but in order to grow crops, large amounts of ground and surface water are used. As the world population continues to grow, the demand for water for agricultural uses is increasing. Many wastewater treatment systems need a large amount of energy to run, are loud, and can often emit strong odors.

Innovation Details

The Biolytix® BioPod is a self-contained system that removes contaminants from used water, similarly to how waste is cleaned and decomposed in nature. First, solid waste is converted to liquid/humic material by tiger worms. Then, wastewater is cleansed by microorganisms as it trickles through a filter system to a pump chamber. The water is then pumped out of the system. The BioPod can be cleaned in-place if there is residual build-up.

Illustration of how the Biolytix® BioPod works. Photo: Biolytix®.

Biological Model

Forests support a variety of organisms, and the different interactions between species helps keep a forest healthy. The soil ecosystem of forests supports plant growth through interactions of millions of organisms that work together to decompose organic matter and aerate the soil.

See Related Strategy

close up photograph of dark brown soil during the day

Biological Strategy

The World’s Most Diverse Community Lives in the Soil

Soil ecosystem

A diverse community of organisms interacts to break down and recycle chemicals to maintain soil fertility.

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