Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions Part 4

 Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions - Water

As we’ve seen in earlier posts over the past months, innovations related to water treatment, production, or conservation are an important feature of the patentECOsphere.

Of the 11 Water Index patents that explicitly purported to be environmentally friendly in our review period (2007-2011), nine are within Class 210, liquid purification or separation.

Patent No. 8,043,499, “Portable and autonomous desalination system,” invented by Farooq Saeed (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Ahmed Z. Al-Garni (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) was issued on October 25, 2011 and assigned to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia). Their invention is considered by the USPTO to be a structural installation of machinery within the broad class of liquid purification or separation inventions (210/171).

Although narrowly classified according to its original classification, it is actually a “portable and autonomous desalination system [using] an autonomous reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system utilizing power from a combination of electricity generation and storage sources that include a photovoltaic (PV) unit, a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) unit, and an electricity storage unit. Electric power from PV, VAWT or storage units or a combination of these units is provided, depending upon the availability of sunlight or wind, or for night operation for water desalination using the reverse-osmosis process. The unit is portable, environmentally friendly, self-sufficient and self-sustaining in terms of supplying the electricity and fresh drinking water needs of the typical household.”

Adaptations could perhaps be applied to disaster relief and recovery (the Fukushima and Indonesia tsunami, and Haitian earthquake come to mind), or applications to the oil and gas drilling industry.

patentECO Environmentally Friendly Water Inventions

How Many Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Water Inventions?

Part 4 — Water

As we’ve seen in earlier posts over the past months, innovations related to water treatment, production, or conservation are an important feature of the patentECOsphere.

Of the 11 Water Index patents that explicitly purported to be environmentally friendly in our review period (2007-2011), nine are within Class 210, liquid purification or separation.

Patent No. 8,043,499, “Portable and autonomous desalination system,” invented by Farooq Saeed (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Ahmed Z. Al-Garni (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) was issued on October 25, 2011 and assigned to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia). Their invention is considered by the USPTO to be a structural installation of machinery within the broad class of liquid purification or separation inventions (210/171).

Although narrowly classified according to its original classification, it is actually a “portable and autonomous desalination system [using] an autonomous reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system utilizing power from a combination of electricity generation and storage sources that include a photovoltaic (PV) unit, a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) unit, and an electricity storage unit. Electric power from PV, VAWT or storage units or a combination of these units is provided, depending upon the availability of sunlight or wind, or for night operation for water desalination using the reverse-osmosis process. The unit is portable, environmentally friendly, self-sufficient and self-sustaining in terms of supplying the electricity and fresh drinking water needs of the typical household.”

Adaptations could perhaps be applied to disaster relief and recovery (the Fukushima and Indonesia tsunami, and Haitian earthquake come to mind), or applications to the oil and gas drilling industry.

patentECO -- Low Tech Clean Tech

Low Tech Clean Tech

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “clean tech”? Advanced, complex water or wastewater treatment facilities? Extensive wind energy farms? Clean rooms where solar panel technology is constructed? Hybrid fuel cars?

What about a PVC or concrete pipe 39-48” long, 16” in diameter containing a layer of fine sand over gravel?

Patent number 5,993,672, “Slow sand filter for use with intermittently flowing water supply and method of use thereof,” was granted on November 30, 1999 to David Manz of Calgary, Canada, and assigned to University Technologies International Inc., the technology transfer arm of the University of Calgary. The patent is classified as 210/744, which places it with inventions dealing with level sensing aspects of liquid purification or separation technologies.

Claim 1 of the patent states:

“A method of operating a slow sand filter for use with an intermittent supply of water, the filter including a container, filter material partially filling the container and having a top, a water inlet above the filter material and a water outlet within the filter material, the method comprising the steps of:

supplying an intermittent flow of water to the container; and

maintaining the water level in the container above the top of the filter material even when there is no flow of water through the slow sand filter at a maintenance level that is selected such that (1) water falling onto the water in the container does not disturb a schmutzdeuke layer formed on the top of the filter material and (2) the schmutzdeuke will survive even when there is no flow of water through the container for at least 24 hours.”

A “schmutzdeuke layer”? What in the world (at least we assume it is not alien) is that? “Schmutzdecke” is a German word that translates as “dirty layer.” If you look in the Background and Summary of the Invention section of the patent (which follows the claims), Manz defines the “schmutzdeuke layer” as a biological layer that forms at the top of sand when the sand is immersed in flowing water for several days. The schmutzdeuke is formed from various organisms such as algae, plankton, diatoms, protozoa and bacteria. It entraps and partially digests and breaks down organic matter container in the raw water passing through the filter. The organic matter accumulates on the schmutzdeuke and simple inorganic salts are formed. At the same time, inert suspended particles in the raw water are removed mechanically. You can see this reddish-brown layer if you have a sand-filtered aquarium. Think of it as a living version of a coffee filter.

Slow sand filters are effective in removing bacteria, parasites, Giardia cysts, Cryptosporidium oocysts and viruses from water. In fact, sand filters might be a major component of the water treatment plant that provides your drinking water if you are on a municipal water system. While bacteria, parasites and viruses may be killed or rendered inactive with disinfection, dormant cysts and oocysts are very resistant to disinfection unless the disinfectant is administered very intensively. Slow sand filters may be used to supply clean water directly for consumption or may be used to supply water for further treatment, such as by reverse osmosis and ultra-filtration, both of which processes require quite clean water to begin with.

Manz’s invention, by providing a static water level above the sand layer, allows the biosand filter to be used in situations where the water supply is intermittent (the biological filter layer dies if it dries out), such as wilderness cabins, third-world countries, and disaster settings.

Simple technology, such as this one in patentECO’s Water Index, can be clean.

patentECO - Indoor Wetlands

A December 26, 2011 Associated Press article discussed challenges faced by many cities to control overflows due to wet weather from combined municipal stormwater and wastewater systems. The article references a USEPA memo released in late October, 2011 describing an integrated planning approach that EPA will implement with municipalities to look for opportunities to solve multiple water quality problems. EPA’s announcement of the planning approach touts “[g]reen infrastructure, such as green roofs, rain gardens, planter boxes, and permeable pavement, [as] an example of an integrated solution that can reduce, capture, and treat stormwater runoff at its source before it can reach the sewer system. Green infrastructure provides a cost effective way to reduce overflows and add green space in communities.”

Some of the technologies mentioned by EPA fall into the patentECO Industry ecosystem (e.g., green roofs, rain gardens, planter boxes) while others are transportation-related (permeable pavement). Is there other, more advanced patented clean technology that can be brought to bear on reducing stormwater runoff or pollution in towns and cities, thereby also reducing the potential for overflowing sewage from their combined treatment facilities?

The “greenest” technologies to accomplish this would use living, green plants. It has long been known in ecology that wetlands have a tremendous capacity for buffering storm runoff (and wave action in the case of tidal wetlands) and absorbing and/or converting water pollutants to less toxic or available forms. Early work to apply this knowledge to the treatment of polluted water occurred in Germany in the 1950s. In the US, a number of patents using this knowledge have been granted to John H. Todd:

5,087,353: “Solar aquatic apparatus for treating waste”

5,389,257: “Methods for treating water”

5,486,291: “Ecological fluidized bed method for the treatment of polluted water”

5,618,413: “Ecological fluidized bed system”

Todd’s patents were purchased in 1999 by Worrell Water Technologies of Charlottesville, VA. Worrell has updated the technology and received additional patents.

Patent number 7,320,752, “Integrated hydroponic and wetland wastewater treatment systems and associated methods”, was issued on January 22, 2008 to David C. Austin, David J. Maciolek, and J. Rob von Rohr. The invention is classified in the US system as 210/602; this places it with technology that uses plants or animals of a higher order (i.e., not bacteria) to purify or separate liquids. 

Claim 1 states:

“A method for achieving advanced treatment of wastewater comprising:

removing from water to be treated at least some organic compounds and solids in a first module;

at least intermittently exposing the water to be treated to oxygen in the first module;

achieving at least partial denitrification of the water to be treated in the first module;

channeling the water from the first module to a second module comprising an aerated hydroponic reactor;

and channeling water exiting the hydroponic reactor to a top of a third module comprising a vertical-flow wetland adapted to maintain a population of aquatic invertebrates therein, for achieving BOD removal, nitrification, denitrification, and removal of TSS.”

Worrell’s other patents for this technology include:

7,347,940: “Nitrogen removal system and method for wastewater treatment lagoons”, issued March 25, 2008.

7,378,021: “Tidal vertical flow wastewater treatment system and method”, issued May 27, 2008.

The upshot of these patents is that if you are a building owner interested in reducing the environmental impact of your property, and you desire to improve water quality, the technology to do that with constructed ecosystems exists. It would even make a fascinating addition to your building’s lobby.

patentECO - The Way Better Patents View

The patentECO Clean Tech Ecosystem

In my introductory patentECO post, I referred to the clean technology ecosystem — what does this phrase mean?

Way Better Patents reviewed many definitions of “clean”, “green”, and “sustainable” technology. Some more accurately describe our view of clean technology than others, but we found that none capture key economic factors that are necessary for clean technology to provide viable products and services in a market-based economy.

Clean technology can be found across the innovative continuum.  Broadly clean tech is technology that uses less material and/or energy, minimizes waste, and lessen negative environmental consequences.  Clean tech can be found in the physical, chemical, electrical, biological, or computational disciplines.  

These technologies cover a wide spectrum of processes, products, services, and business models.  Clean tech delivers financial returns for investors, competitive prices for consumers, and profits for producers. The clean technology ecosystem is characterized by innovation that maintains a focus on efficient and productive use of natural and man-made resources in a sustainable manner — targeting human needs and desired products and services, while conserving resources and the environment so that these needs and desires may be met both now and in the future.

Clean technologies apply to agriculture, air pollution control and reduction, industry, energy, resource extraction or harvesting, transportation, and water and wastewater, and pertain to the resource inputs, processes, and supply chains that support them.

The Clean Tech Ecosystem

We have identified particular portions of the US Patent Classification system (USPC) and the International Patent Classification system (IPC) that cover clean technologies in these disciplines that pertain to:

• Agriculture
• Air,  air pollution control and reduction
• Industry
• Energy
• Resource extraction or harvesting
• Transportation
• Water, water and wastewater

In upcoming posts we’ll review patented technologies in these areas from the standpoint of the defining aspect of the invention, and where it lies within the innovation space of that particular technology.

Additional details may be found on our patentECO web page. 

Welcome to patentECO

Today, Way Better Patent inaugurates our new patentECO blog.  patentECO will appear here on The Inkling.

patentECO is Way Better Patents’ ecosystem of clean technology innovation, as represented by patents issued by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), and other international patent organizations comprising the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

patentECO will review cleantech inventions and the patents that define them and the role patents play in the cleantech ecosystem.  We will review cleantech news items from an intellectual property (IP) and innovation perspective. We will focus on seven major categories within the clean technology ecosystem: air, industry; energy; water; resource extraction and harvesting, transportation and agriculture. We’ll take forays into other corners of the cleantech ecosystem as our interest leads us.

Michael Bowman, the Managing Editor of patentECO, is leading this effort.  Mike has decades of experience in clean technology, intellectual property analysis and management, innovation, and high tech knowledge management solutions. We will bring a unique perspective to the clean technology discussion.

Way Better Patents builds useful, easy to understand, engaging applications that transform complex data into compelling and expressive information. We are passionate about what we do, about providing real access to information in ways that help you gain insight and create knowledge. Way Better Patents applications are tools for exploration, tools for discovery, tools for analysis so you can explore, discover, analyze and execute — information you can use.