The concept of the ICABUS was conceived at the end of 2019: a large wet sieve surface at a small angle with a water flow.
A few drawings in PowerPoint and some written ideas were made at that time. Because I was still busy with my company Aqua Innovation Network, not much time was dedicated to it. Then, when the corona pandemic hit the world, I had to make a decision: either chase projects that were unlikely to come or fully commit to this innovation. The decision was made quickly, and since then, all attention and energy has been focused on developing the ICABUS. A short test was soon conducted in the backyard, using a wooden box and a sieve plate that we manually positioned at different angles.
It turned out to work
So, after many brainstorming sessions with Ko and Jacco, a test setup was built with automatic cleaning of the sieve plate. Jacco showed a lot of creativity here, with 3D-printed parts, SolidWorks drawings, and some parts ordered from 24/7 TailorSteel, followed by hours of tapping, screwing, and filing. And it worked!
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WTN Report
Contact was made with Waterschap Vallei en Veluwe, who established the Water Test Network (WTN) with the help of an INTERREG subsidy. The WTN provides a test location with facilities and analytical capabilities for new developments within the water industry. This is crucial for parties wishing to transition from Proof of Principle to Proof of Concept.
The mini ICABUS was then tested at the WTN for four months. This testing period provided valuable insights and confirmed that the system is functioning as expected.
Eerbeek Testing Report
Equally important were the connections we made with the people from the water authority. Peter-Jan put us in touch with Industriewater Eerbeek, where we were allowed to conduct an initial test. A very good result (83% removal of suspended solids!) gave a huge boost to confidence in the technology.
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Introduction
In the process of proving the concept of the ICABUS, a new type of sieve for the removal of fibres from wastewater, tests were performed at Industriewater Eerbeek. This company treats the wastewater of 3 further unrelated paper factories, Mayr-Melnhof Eerbeek (virgin fibre➔cartonboard), DS Smith De Hoop (recycled paper ➔ liner) en Neenah Coldenhove (high end paper).
Industriewater Eerbeek (IE) is dedicated on waste water treatment, always looking for chances to reduce the cost per m3 treated water. They are known for their focus on innovation. Contact was laid between AIN and IE after a meeting between IE and waterboard Vallei en Veluwe, whom will test the ICABUS soon as well. IE indicated they might have an interest in testing a technology for fibre removal as well, resulting in these tests.
Conclusions
Based on these indicative tests, we cannot make any proper assumptions on the application at Industriewater Eerbeek. However, we were there to proof the concept of the ICABUS, and we did.
We proved that the system is able to remove fibres from a water flow, by using cake filtration on a wastewater containing fibrous pollutants. Even with the not optimized system we remove > 80% of
the fibres, which proofs the concept far better than expected.
