Research initiatives in MAPTech Lab have demonstrated a one-step process that removes ammonium from wastewater while recovering energy as electrical current or energy-rich hydrogen gas, as reported in a Nature Communications paper by Ph.D. student Dario Rangel Shaw and collaborators.

The breakthrough underpinning the research demonstrates how anammox bacteria can oxidize ammonium coupled with extracellular electron transfer-based respiration. This process represents a more energy-efficient wastewater treatment method as it harnesses anammox bacteria's surprising ability to "breathe" solid-state matter.

“We consider wastewater as a resource,” said Prof. Pascal Saikaly, KAUST professor of environmental science and engineering. “In addition to treating the water, our aim is to reuse the treated water for certain applications while, at the same time, recovering energy. Essentially, we want to transform wastewater treatment plants from energy-intensive systems to energy-neutral or possibly energy-positive systems”.

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