Dutch startup company Hydraloop has just won the Best of Innovation in Sustainability, Eco-Design, and Smart Energy at CES 2020 in Las Vegas for its water recycling system.
CEO and founder of Hydraloop, Arthur Valkieser’s, focus was to come up with a way for people to be able to reduce their water consumption. So, he built a device that gives homeowners, builders, commercial buildings, and hotels or resorts a way to sterilize and reuse their water.
What he came up with is about the size of a refrigerator. It connects to your home’s existing water system for filtering and processing existing wastewater.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1ABMsZaKCo
The “heart of the system” removes dirt, soap, and other pollution without using a filter, membrane, or chemicals. Hydraloop combines 5 technologies, Sedimentation, Flotation, Dissolved Air Flotation, Foam fractionation, and an Aerobic Bioreactor. The final treatment in the process is disinfection using UV light by anaerobic bioreactor. The treated water may then be reused in washing machines, gardens, pools, and toilets.
As reported on the CES website, Hydraloop:
- Reduces your Carbon Footprint by 6%
- Reduces Water and Energy bills
- Reduces energy consumption by 600kWh* (in countries with cooler winter climates/*on basis of 4-person family)
- Reduces water consumption by 45%, and
- Reduces Sewage Emission by 45%
The estimated water saved per year for a family of 4 would translate to 20,000 gallons (75,000 liters), which is equivalent to around 250 bathtubs of water.
In an email interview with Electrek, Valkieser explained the company outlook:
The reason why we started to develop our products is the fact that people use water very inefficiently. We use much more water than our ecosystem can produce. Freshwater is renewable only by rainfall on land, and the amount of rainfall is simply insufficient to the amount we withdraw from our earth. And, in the next 30 years, our world population will grow from 7.8 billion to 10 billion, but we are already running out of water today. But, if in the next decades’ decentralized water recycling units become standard, just like other appliances at home, we can substantially curb the growing demand for freshwater we withdraw from the earth and even reverse the growth. It is absolutely ridiculous, and definitely not at all 21st century, that we still flush our toilets with drinking water or run our washing machine with it. Water is our ‘Blue Gold’ and we should treat it this way.
The units come equipped with the ability of switching over to back-up water, mains or rainwater. They also come with an app that helps the owner optimize how they reuse the recycled water.
Maintenance requirements are very low, the UV light has an average lifespan of around 4 years, and it’s recommended to be changed every 3 years. The company does recommend a yearly checkup by an installation professional. Should anything go wrong within the machine a notification email will be sent out to the installer for required maintenance.
Hydraloop products are currently available in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and deliveries to the U.S. are expected to start in mid-2020. The costs will start at $4,000 excluding tax, transportation, and installation.
For more information and pre-ordering a Hydraloop water recycling system, visit the website.
