Rob Marchant says: Good to see another entry from Barcelona - good luck with it Mario.

giovanna barbaro says: I think that this is a good time for Clean Tech like your AFADS.
Good luck and go on!

Lugia Scapin says: AFADS It is a great system!
It will aid us to reduce our ecological footprint.
Good luck Mario!

Saurabh Mishra says: Great Idea combining four processes into one!!
All the best!

Nitin Raheja says: Like it .... bien suerte!

Antonio Sanchez-Cordero says: I also think it's a great idea! Good luck!

Sun Guangyi says: I have introduce your AFADS to local Chinese enviromental officers. They are intreasted. They are studying your system. Hope you may come to China with AFADS as soon as possible.

Rodrigo Carbajal says: This project is very interesting, congratulations !!!... for my city (Mexico City) will serve a lot ... I imagine this system on buildings ...

Good luck!

Mikel Jauregui says:
Good Luck Mario, AFADS system is a very interesting project.

Best Regards,

Mikel Jáuregui

GIANPIETRO CONTRAN says: AFADS system is a very interesting project. Hope you may come to Italy with AFADS as soon as possible.

Good luck!

Gianpietro Contran

Gudrun Kuessner says: Great ideo. So much better to get rid of CO2 than CCS.
Good luck

Luke Miller says: Congratulations Mario and best of luck with the competition. Good to have a BCN representative in the last group.

Clara Lazcano says: AFADS seems really interesting: it treates wastewaters and helps lower CO2 emissions. A win-win for the environment. Great idea, Mario!

Alex Hanganu says: Mario, you want to see this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7941863.stm

Would you care to comment on the advantages and cost effectiveness of your approach with respect to Mr. Gerber's?

Clara Mota says: Hello, Mario, congratulations,

Please clarify, the system that your are proposing is prepared to treat only wastewater, or also organic food waste ?

Thank You

Rob Marchant says: Mario, well done - keep on flying the flag for Barcelona.

Mario Rosato says: Answers:

a) To Alex Hanganu
The system of Mr. Gerber is what I call "technologic brute force". A lot of energy is necessary to dry the biomass before it can be pyrolised, and the balance is not always neutral, sometmes you need to put more energy to dry, than what you actually get from the pyrolysis gas. Pyrolysis works well with relatively dry biomass. I have experimented myself with the so called "wet pyrolysis", but the research was aborted by lack of fonds. The result is something similar to crude oil.
Returning to Mr. Gerber's system: sludge from conventional wastewater treatment plants usually contains high amount of N. By pyrolysing it , or by burning the pyrolysis gas, it is probable that NO2 will be formed. NO2 has somehow like 290 times more greehouse effect power than CO2 and causes acid rains. Hence the technological complexity of systems handling these type of process is high.
My system has a "zen" approach: a longer path but with minimal energy. The AFADS is a 4 stage biologic process. See more details in www.sustainable-technologies.eu . In few words: the anaerobic digestion eliminates organic matter and produces methane, but does not eliminate N. The aerobic/phytdepuration eliminate N from the water which has little organic matter. At the same time , CO2 is converted to O2 by photosynthesis. Since all is placed inside a greenhouse, inevitably, water evaporates by the solar heating and condenses against the glass walls and roof. It is recovered as pure water , 3% of teh input (not much but just for free!). All you need for this plant is low tech components, a small amount of electricity and a good deal of mathematic ability to model the system for each climate. The mathematical model is non-linear to some extent. As per my calculations, it can work from the Equator to nearly 60º latitude. The further step will be producing biohydrogen instead of biogas.


b) To Clara Mota
I have developed 3 different ranges of AFADS system: low range for farms, middle range for industries and upper range for landfills and municipal wastwater plants. Since the UASB digester placed inside the AFADS works well only with very diluted waters, in order to digest also solids a co-digester is needed. I am negotiating with a landfill site near Barcelona to test a new type of co-digester called biomimetic . The biomimetic digester consists of neoprene tubes from dismissed pneumatic boats (a tough environmental problem, there are more than 1000 in Barcelona's port, and the projects intends to solve also this problem). The tubes are connected like a gut (hence the name biomimetic digester). Solids are input from one end ,advance by a peristaltic movemnet system and exit from the other end. The organic matter is continuously wetted with water coming form the AFADS and the leachate is circulated through its UASB digester , so the methanogenic bacteria are not lost and the required digestion times are hence shorter.

Thanks to everybody for the interest shown in my project.
The problem of CO2 elimination is not technical , but political. If somebody paid or gave a discount on tax for eliminating CO2, be sure everybody would be installing photobioreactors. Since it it not so, the only solution is the AFADS, which relies on biogas production , boosted by the codigestion of the algae, to yield carbon neutral energy and clean water.

Augusto Casciani says: Very interesting Mario. Congratulations

Ana Marino says: Really a great idea! Good luck, Mario!

Walter Masur says: Dear Mario,
your project is really interesting and there is a high potential for international business success. I strongly believe that your system should be combined with other technics to very new waste / wastwater recycling fecilities.
If you are interested in a direct discussion please send me an e-mail with your personal contact details. Looking forward for your answer.
Best regards
Walter Masur

e-mail: walter.masur@t-online.de