Sewage treatment plants have been among the biggest municipal energy consumers so far. With a new technology that turns the sewage treatment plant from an electricity consumer into a small power plant, a German team of researchers now wants to reverse the trend. The key component of the plant is a bio-electrochemical fuel cell that can directly produce electric power and hydrogen – without the digestion process used so far. For the innovative concept, in the development of which researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are involved, and that is coordinated by TU Clausthal, the group has now received the German Sustainability Award in the category of research.
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More information about the bio-electrochemical fuel cell BioBZ: http://www.bio-bz.de/ (in German only)
More information on the German Sustainability Award: https://www.nachhaltigkeitspreis.de/en/
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.