ZAP2TAP Solar sterilisation technology for clean safe water

Sunlight and clean water are essential for human life on earth. Approximately one billion people are exposed to unsafe water for drinking and food preparation due to poor source water quality and lack of adequate water treatment, a problem expected to grow worse in the coming decades, with water scarcity occurring globally, even in regions currently considered water rich.

This project aims to build & test Proof-of-Concept ZAP2TAP water sterilisation devices that use only visible light, not ultraviolet or electricity, to achieve a high kill rate for water borne pathogens. During the project the kill rate for Escherishia Coli in water will be determine. The technology uses photosensitizer molecules tethered to solid phase nanomaterials supports to create a continuous supply of reactive oxygen in flowing water. The short lived singlet oxygen is mixed with water which is contaminated with pathogens. The effect of singlet oxygen on the pathogen is to degrade or break open the protective bilayer membranes which surrounds the pathogen and kills the pathogen leaving it harmless. Current tests of the novel materials in stationary water have produce a billion times reduction in the number of living pathogens when exposed to a light which simulates the sun.

The ZAP2TAP devices will be built from recycleable materials, they will be flexible, light weight and use many of the processes and tools used in the food packaging industry for their manufacture.

The technology will impact society by
- Improving people's access to clean safe water for drinking and food preparation.
- Improving food manufacturers ability to meet the World Health Organisation's water quality standards for food preparation, thus improving health and wellbeing.
- Reducing illness arising from the water borne pathogens associated with unsafe drinking water, leading to a increase in the average no. of days worked and impact economic development and recovery.
- Helping to secure the supply of drinking water to consumers by allowing direct solar sterilisation of harvested rainwater, source water and greywater.
- Reducing the dependence of chemicals to sterilise water.

The technology will impact the environment by
- Improving water management at personal, domestic and industrial scales
- Reduced carbon footprint & energy consumption by water utilities by reducing the volume of water extracted & pumped, including a reduced demand for new installations & pipe networks, leading to reduced impact on the Environment and maintained ecosystems.
- Remove the use of water sterilisation chemicals and their associated hazards.
- Enabling water re-use, which then diverts rainfall from the combined sewer network. This has significant benefits for water utilities and the community with fewer pollution incidents and reduced surface water flooding.
- Helping architects meet carbon emission regulations to increase sustainable implementation of rainwater harvesting in new homes.

The technology will benefit the ecomomy by
- Creating a high value product which meets the demands of both home and international markets.
- Creating and maintaining high value manufacturing jobs.
- Introducing high volume production of nanofibre material into the supply chain for the production of other high value innovative products in the UK.

Direct beneficiaries.

The collaboration agreement between Leeds University, Nottingham Trent University and Nano Products Ltd shows the desire by the partners to translate the research outcome to a marketed product. Each will become a direct financial beneficiary from sales revenues. The suppliers of the polypropylene materials, production tools and raw materials for the electrospun fabric will benefit from the supply agreements.

The BBSRC iCASE project which is led by Professor Millner at Leeds University will benefit directly. The supply of proof of concept ZAP2TAP devices will allow the project and the project student to establish commercially relevant scientific data. This data will be used by the collaborative partners to build the business case for follow-on investment.

STFC will benefit from highly valued Press and PR opportunities which will occur downstream when the ZAP-2-TAP technology is commercialised and both the societal, environmental and economic benefits become obvious.. STFC will be able to say that it was the funding catalyst which facilitated faster product development and technical enhancement of a low carbon footprint water sterilisation technology.

Indirect beneficiaries
The Environment Agency, DEFRA, the Health Protection Agency (Public Health England), will be made aware of the technology and its utility. This will allow the availability of the new technology to be considered when new policies, regulations and initiatives are developed. Globally, views on water are changing, and new regulations around usage, and pricing will only push for more efficient use of current infrastructure.

The large water utilities, which address a US$300 Billion global market (Yorkshire Water and Anglia Water have expressed interest) will be able to offer incentives to their residential (point-of-use), and high value industrial sectors(pharmaceutical, semi-conductor, and food) to install ZAP2TAP devices. This will lead to reduced stress on existing pipe networks, better planning of new infrastructure to meet the demands of the growing population, whilst reducing over extraction of water. This will lead in the long term to improved environment and eco-systems.

800 million of the world's population do not have access to safe clean water for drinking and food prepartion. Many devices have been proposed, but the business case to sell products to poor vulnerable people is very difficult to balance. The ZAP2TAP device will weigh less than 200g/sqm when shipped and we estimate 50 litres of clean safe water can be produced per day per square metre, or equivalent to 10 people having access to sufficient volume to maintain health. As an example a single C-130H Hercules airplane could airlift/airdrop over 50,000 devices to disaster areas providing the ability to sterilise sufficient water for half a million people per day, without the need for sterilisation chemicals. Charities such as Oxfam, WaterAid, The Water Project, Just a Drop, Water for Africa, and Governments Aid and many others may be the paying customers for the sustainable business case.