High-Level Stakeholder Table

This high-level stakeholder table contains the key elements we took away from our stakeholder meetings. On the rightmost column there are links to further down the page where these meetings are explained in full detail using the AREA framework implemented in our project.

Engage:

On the 15th of August we took a trip to Totnes to visit on of South West Water's treatment plant to better understand the how bacteria are used in current methods for the bio-remediation water. Once there, we were greeted by a Scientist and Engineer currently working at the plant who agreed to participate in an interview so that we could asked a number of pre-arranged questions and gain feedback on our design filter.

Questions and Answers:

1. What is South West Water policy about using GM organisms?

As far as they know South West Water (SWW) does not have a particular stance on the use of GM organisms. Their approach to new technology is that it must be proven to be robust and reliable. SWW is interested in any technology that has the potential to improve the efficiency and reliability of their operations.

2. Do you use any form of bioremediation in your current operations? If so, how is bio-security ensured?

Yes. Bacteria is used to digest compounds in the 'sludge' such as ammonia (which is very toxic to fish). As the bacteria used by South West Water is not genetically modified there is not a need to ensure that 100% of the bacteria is removed from the outflow, unlike in our case. As there is no zero target the current method to disinfect the water is to use UV lights to significantly reduce the population of bacteria.

3. How do you monitor the water quality in the plant?

The Urban Waste Water Directive from the European Commission requires that once a month the water is monitored for a period of 24 hours, although the plant may monitor more frequently during peak periods. This provides seasonal information about the water entering the plant. Furthermore depending on the consents at the particular works other quantities may be monitored including: Biological Oxygen Demand, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Suspended Solids (Turbidity), Ammonia, Phosphate or other contaminants defined in the Urban Waste Water Directive 1991 (including metal ions).

4. What are the most common pollutants in the water you receive?

The majority of pollutants are organic pollutants, ammonia and non-biodegradable material

5. Do they currently use hydrocyclones in any of their operations?

Hydrocyclones are sometimes used in the removal of grit. An example of the kind of hydrocyclone set used is given below. They gave the impression that hydrocyclones were not frequently used in sewage treatment although similar devices such as a centrifuges to dewater 'sewage sludge' are much more common.

Questions they had for us after explaining the project and the filter design.

1. How would we tell when the media in the Fluidised Media Reactor is saturated?

Steve suggested that we could use a similar method employed be SWW called ‘backwash’ to check that the filter is working. For this we would require two or more filters in series such that one can be turned offline without leading to a complete shutdown. Water is passed through the offline filter and tested. The backwash can then be circulated through the rest of the plant. It’s important to note that the backwash will be more concentrated than the water usually running through the plant and therefore the plant must have the capacity to cope.

2. What is the waste associated with our project and how will we dispose of it in a way that doesn’t cause environmental harm?

Both interviewees raised concerns over how we would deal with the media when it does become saturated. Firstly the saturated media would need to be removed from the reactor and then replaced. If we needed to send people to manually remove it, how dangerous would this be? Secondly where would we then store this waste? Jules turned our attention towards waste transfer notes which regulate the removal and transportation of waste. She directed us towards European Waste Catalogue codes (EWC codes). They both express that from a business standpoint we should look more closely into how to extract the metal ions to then sell on, in an attempt to make our process economically viable.

Anticipate:

Many technical issues with our proposed design were raised during the interview. Firstly in order to improve on the existing technology it was made clear we that we need to limit our wastage, something that SSW do very effectively by selling organic waste on as compost or by using collected methane gas to fuel operations within the plant . This means devising a method of either recycling the substrate our E.coli grow and/or extracting the metals ions which could potentially be sold increasing the income of the plant. If not possible we need to consider the environmental impact of the resultant waste. The waste from the fluidised Media Reactor contains our GM organism, how can this be stored safely?

Reflect:

This was a very informative meeting and we felt very grateful to have receive feedback from industry experts in waste water treatment. What was particular helpful was the opportunity to hear their concerns and examine our project for important flaw in our design which will be addressed in the weeks following the interview.

Act:

Since the trip to South West we have tested the effectiveness of UV radiation as a safe guard for GM bacteria. The results of our experiments show that UV is not suitable for our bacteria owing to a large predicted escape frequency. Therefore we have explored alternative ways of ensuring bio-security, including using Copper Alginate beads.

Engage:

On the 10th August, we went for a tour, around the Veolia Water Treatment Plant, led by a Technical Process Electrician. We wanted to learn about the specifics of the current treatment at the Wheal Jane site, therefore we came prepared with a set of questions based on gaps in our knowledge that we were unable to find in literature. The questions and answers are included below. 1. What is the current treatment method? Lime is used to precipitate the metals out of the solution, then anionic polyacrylamide is added to cause coagulation of the metals. This forms a sludge that falls to the bottom and the clean water flows over the top; this is how they are separated. The sludge is recycled around the system until it reaches a certain thickness. The water is checked to see if it has reached the optimum PH level. This is at least 9.1 to ensure that manganese is precipitated out of the solution because it dissolves at a higher PH to the rest of the metals. The clean water then runs down a stream into the valley.

1. Where does the lime come from?
Buxton, Derbyshire (they have 200 years’ worth of lime left).
2. What are the flow rates they use?
330 l/s
3. What are the diameter of the pipes?
10 pipes at start have diameter of around 4 inches.
4. How long does the process take?
20-30 minutes
5. How costly is it?
£1.5 m per year to run.
6. What happens to the metal that is removed from the water?
A sludge is formed and dumped into Clemows Valley Tailing Dam.
7. Who is responsible for cleaning up the water?

Funding is provided by DEFRA, the Environmental Agency regulates the clean-up and Coal Authority is in charge of the clean-up of all UK mines. Additionally, we were provided with clear details of the lime dosing process at the treatment plant which is outlined in the current treatments section of our wiki. Follow-up emails were welcomed at the end of the meeting. Once developing our model, we emailed to find out their views on it. The feedback was that we had included similar bases to those they require at their plant.

Anticipate:

Visiting the plant allowed us to understand the scale that current operations are working at to clean up the water at the Wheal Jane site. This will help us when considering the implementation of our project. Additionally, understanding the material their pipes are made from, so that they can withstand the high acidity of the water, has helped us anticipate potentially needing to change the material used for fluidised media reactor and hydrocyclone so that they can withstand the highly acidic water.

Reflect:

Understanding the drawbacks of this method reinforced the motivations for our research. The drawbacks include: high running costs, high carbon footprint from transporting lime from the limestone quarry in Buxton, Derbyshire, and that the metals aren’t extracted they are contained within the sludge therefore the Tailing dam of sludge is now 69 metres high. This helped us reflect on how our project is better than this current method. Approximately ¾ of the sludge consists of lime slurry therefore our method would reduce the waste by a significant amount as we are eradicating the need for lime. Additionally, there is a possibility, due to our method of extraction, of being able to get the metals into a form in which they can be sold on. This would be particularly useful as then the money gained from this could be used to pay for the running cost of the filtration system.

Act:

We were provided with details of flow rates which provided useful when running the model as we were able to run it at the industrial scale as well as at the scale of our prototype.

Extra Info:

• Water is PH 3.4 before going through their treatment plant.
• In the 1992 flood at the Wheal Jane site 45 million litres of acidic minewater poured into the Carnon River and Fal Estuary.
• The fishery and tourism industry have been affected and the fishery industry has only just recovered.
• They have filled 4/14 paddocks in the tailing dam with sludge.
• 702000 tonnes of hazardous waste have been cleaned in 17 years the plant has been opened.
• 28 tonnes cleaned in a standard week but can be up to 100 tonnes.
• Sludge is circulated to save limestone.
• 10 inflow pipes
• Cost £13000 each
• Made of stainless steal.
• Steal inside the pipe is not in contact with the water as it is reinforced with rubber on the inside and outside.
• They are flexible pipes that don’t need replacing.
• Lime is stored in powder form, each storage tank had 35 tonnes of lime but can store up to 40 tonnes.
• White lime is added to reaction chamber (this is where it begins to look orange due to iron in water).
• PH measurer tells valve when to open/close – it can be opened to the specific amount required.
• Water is considered clean after one pass through.
• They use an ICP machine to check metal concentration.
• Enough water pumped per day to give everyone in England 1 litre of water.

On reflection, the information provided by from this stakeholder has allowed us to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of our project in comparison to the current system in place. It also enabled us to understand the scale that the future implementation of our project would be at, including flow rates, equipment sizes and quantities to monitor throughout the filtration system i.e. PH and turbidity.

Engage:

During the early stages of our project, a few members of the team were lucky enough to go and visit Taunton Aquarium. For some time, we had been unsure of how our filtration system would work and we had hoped that the specialist owner of Taunton Aquarium may have been able to shed some insight into how he keeps his aquarium water so clean. We were also very interested in his use of fluidised media reactors, and hence bacteria, to remove nitrates from the water.

We maintained fairly regular contact with our stakeholder at Taunton Aquarium. His initial ideas were crucial for the early development stages of our filtration system. By engaging on a regular basis, we were able to keep him in the loop with any new developments. He was then able to advise us on different courses of action. We also bought some equipment from Taunton Aquariums, including a fluidised media reactor, some aragonite sand and a DC pond pump.

Anticipate:

During the visit, it became clear that we had to anticipate how our design would compete with filtration systems already available on the market. Also, we needed to explore containment issues a lot further; while Taunton aquariums used bacteria as part of their system, containment was not so much of an issue as it was not GM bacteria.

Reflect:

Our meeting with the owner of Taunton aquarium was very interesting. He was extremely knowledgeable on both his own system as well as other systems. He suggested that if we are to develop a system with which we can filter water straight from the source, we need a preliminary stage of filtration with which we can filter larger sediment out of water in order to prevent blockages in the FMR. He discussed the possibilities of a hydrocyclone, used in industry scale water treatment centres and talked with us about their different uses.

Act:

Following on from our initial discussion with our stakeholder at Taunton Aquarium, we immediately decided that the use of a hydrocyclone was worth pursuing. This was due to the lack of moving parts, low running costs and ease of manufacture. Our idea to use a fluidised media reactor was reinforced by his expertise, and he also suggested using silica sand as the media to use inside our filter due to its resistance to the high acidity of polluted mine water. We tested this type of media by culturing the bacteria on it, imaging samples and then performing experiments to test its effectiveness. We also bought a lot of specialist equipment from the aquarium which was used in a number of different experiments.

Engage:

Two members of the team went down with on of our advisors to Plymouth to discuss the project with a representavtive from Plymouth Marine Laboratory. His research covers a very broad range of topics so we found that he had a lot to offer in terms of both advice and equipment. He had in the past worked on similar bioremediation products involving Wheal Jane and acid mine drainage. A great deal of his work looks at bridging the gap between research and industry, an area of interest to us at this stage.

We had a number of areas on which we thought that this stakeholder might be able to advise us, and therefore went to Plymouth prepared with questions. These questions concerned the practical implementation of our filter, including the logistics of hydrocyclone used, methods of bactericide and immobilisation of bacteria. Other questions were related to end product processing, such as the ideal modes of phase separation. We also wanted to know about the most practical and cheap method of separating sediment from our inflow, and mixing the reactants.

Based on his own research into Wheal Jane, it was suggested to us that metal extraction on such a scale, especially when the government are involved, is a serious undertaking for a short project.

Anticipate:

His experience was extremely useful in helping us to answer questions that demanded empirical knowledge. For example, his own research into the efficacy of UV vs copper alginate beads told us that in a system consisting of pipes and flowing water, the latter would be far more effective. This informed our decision to test the efficacy of UV radiation as a bactericidal measure, on our own strains of E.coli and to consider copper alginate beads as a future prospect.

His experience in culturing biofilms was also of great use. While we had been attempting to use loose particulate media as growth surfaces, we reconsidered this option in light of his advice. We were shown a hydrocyclone that they had used for a slightly different purpose. This led to inform us that a significant requirement of our filter unit would be to maximise exposure of our cells to the solution, ideally in a way that is energetically cheap.

Reflect:

The meeting allowed us to take a number of aspects of our project to the next level. It became clear to us that while our initial ideas had been valid, they required a degree of tweaking, in order to achieve the results that we wanted.

We realised that we were on the right lines with the hydrocyclone as an energetically effective method of create a vortex, and that the fluidised media reactor was a valid approach. It was evident that slightly new methods of culturing biofilms and killing errant bacteria were required.

It also seemed apparent, that , at least given the current state of our filter unit, its strength lies in its cheapness and portability. Whilst it may not yet be ready for large scale filtration, the problem of heavy metal pollution is widespread, especially in LEDCs. There is therefore a need for such a system outside of the UK.

Act:

Subsequent improvements made to the implementation of our project included the use of “plastic scrubbers” as a growth surface and chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwash as a biofilm inducer and the testing of UV radiation as a bactericidal measure.

Certainly any future developments of this project would involve the use of copper alginate beads as a method of bactericide and the filter unit would build on the principle of the hydrocyclone and maximal exposure of ligands and binding proteins.

Engage:

On the 18th July, we went to a meeting with 3 Greenpeace representatives. We wanted to speak to them about the current treatment methods at Wheal Jane and legislations behind setting up a filtration system on UNSECO sites such as the Consolidated mines. We were also interested to find out if we were allowed to use their ICPOES machine to analyse our samples from the Wheal Maid site, following our field trip. The meeting allowed us to gain access to use their ICP OES in addition to their ICP MS machines. They informed us that the ICP MS is useful for higher accuracy and can detect every element in the periodic table.

Anticipate:

It was highlighted to us that we needed to understand the process fully to prevent DNA exchange from our GM organism to another organism and ensuring that we used the GM organisms in a closed environment as this is their policy on the use of GM organisms. They also suggested contacting other NGOs for their policies on the use of GM organisms in our filtration system i.e. FOE, WWF, ETC, CBD. From contacting there NGOs, we have learnt that their policies often change on a case by case basis. However, after explaining the nature of our project some of the contacts continued to speak about GM crops which suggests an education barrier. GM crops are often the main fear that arises when speaking about GM and it is important to educate society about their other possible uses.

Reflect:

This meeting stimulated reflection into our motivations behind the research, helping us to consider a USP for our project. One that was considered is being able to take out more specific materials than other systems. This came about from the concern that high concentrations of other metals may saturate the pili before they are able to extract the metals we are targeting. Therefore, it highlighted the important of looking into metal binding proteins that have higher specificity to the metals we are targeting. We found that our preparation for this meeting was poor and as a result our questions not being tailored appropriately for the representatives we interviewed. To resolve this issue for future stakeholder engagement we researched the participants prior to conducting the interview. We also found it difficult to control the direction of conversation in the interview. To prevent this in the future we decided to conduct interviews with one representative when possible.

Act:

Acting upon the information we received from this meeting we utilised the resources provided which helped to broaden our understanding of the issue we are trying to tackle and allowed us to consider the wider context alongside the local issues we were already considering. We have utilised their ICP OES machine to analyse the samples collected from the Wheal Maid site. Additionally, they suggesting looking into the bacteria that were able to survive in the acidic conditions of polluted mine water. Particularly those found on the rhizome of the roots of reed beds used in the passive treatment of Wheal Jane, therefore we researched into this to consider the bacteria that we could transform, in the future, with our genetically modified pili, so that they could survive in realistically acidic conditions of the contaminated water. We have also considered the issue of DNA exchange with the idea of knocking out f pilus gene involved in conjugation.

Extra Info:

We found that these Greenpeace representatives were particularly informative with highlighting the criteria we need to fulfil to make our project as appealing as possible. This included:
• Small amounts of highly valuable metals may be worth extracting for value. This would help us when trying to ensure the cost of extracting the metals is less than the value of selling on the extracted metals.
• Looking into beneficiation to enrich the product we extract.
• If it was possible to obtain purer extractions this would result in lower shipping costs.
• Looking into whether the system can work with insoluble metals and what is the difference in concentration between the soluble and insoluble concentrations in our sample.