A MACRO­SOLUTION FOR THE MICROPLASTICS PROBLEM

THE INNOVATOR: ROLAND DAMANN, INVENTOR AND WORLD TRAVELER IN ALL THINGS WATER QUALITY

THE NEW BIG IDEA THAT IS ON HIS MIND: BRINGING MICROFLOTATION DIRECTLY TO RIVERS AND SEAS

Sprind And Microbubbles

Why We Are Committed

Because microplastics are a global problem—with virtually unforeseeable negative effects on our ecosystem—which must be taken seriously. Because we are pioneers and want to develop solutions before legal regulations force us to. Because the passion and energy of the innovator convinced us from the very first second.

What We Do

We founded a GmbH (German LLC) based on this idea. We provide the framework conditions, so that the innovator and his team can focus on the work. We promote the topic at conferences, thereby making it visible to the public.

The Potential We See

The development of revolutionary technology for water and wastewater treatment—cost-effective, low energy requirements and autonomous. Technology that can make a sustainable contribution to environmental protection and the proactive improvement of all waters. The big goal is water free from microplastics and micropollutants.

Forward Thinking

This technology promises far-reaching innovation potential, even outside the microplastics problem. What is possible, and how do little bubbles help us to solve the challenges of our time? We want to know.

If you ask Roland Damann how he found SPRIND, he gets quite enthusiastic, “I heard the Start-up-DNA podcast, where Rafael Laguna spoke with entrepreneur Frank Thelen about SPRIND. I thought it was great, new and quite inspiring. I contacted SPRIND about my project right away. It was mind-blowing that I already received a reply the next day.”

Let us start at the beginning and take a quick look at Damann’s tireless life as a passionate engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and world traveler in all things water quality. In the 1980s, he developed an oxygenation system that revolutionized aquaculture and fish farming around the world. In the 1990s, he became an expert in wastewater treatment through flotation—a procedure which, at first glance, has already been known since the Middle Ages—with his engineering company. The principle, in which hydrophobic particles are picked up by gas bubbles and are transported to the surface, has not changed. From this, Damann created the highly energy-efficient and perfectly con trollable microflotation, with over 350 references in more than 50 countries. For his unceasing commitment to making microflotation the standard for wastewater treatment, he has been distinguished with the North Rhine-Westphalia Innovation Award, among other things. Rather than resting on his achievements, he is using them as encouragement and as an obligation to go further. From the small city of Paderborn, Germany, Roland Damann thinks big, “We have to make microflotation smarter.”

THE INNOVATION: MICROBUBBLES AGAINST MICROPLASTICS

In theory, microflotation systems work outstandingly well, only by “placing them next to a water body.” In order to clean the water, you have to isolate it by pumping it out of a lake or sea. It is great for manageable quantities of water (of municipalities and industrial plants), but for large bodies of water and their enormous pollution problems, its unfortunately illusive. That is, until now.

The big new idea that is on Roland Damann’s mind is injecting microscopic air bubbles directly and autonomously into rainwater retention basins, lakes, rivers, and seas. “Among other things, we will place a compact swimmer module as a carrier on the surface of the water. In the center of the ring, we produce microbubbles with a diameter of 10 to 50 micrometers—about a third of the thickness of a hair—using a minimal amount of energy. These bubbles form a mist-like cloud of bubbles of extremely high density—two million bubbles per liter—which rise very slowly, attract and hold onto the finest microplastic particles like a magnet and transport them to the surface. Therefore, we remove everything, producing essentially 100-percent suspended matter and microplastic-free water. No chemicals, no maintenance, and extremely low energy input. We are targeting the finest pollutants in the water in particular here, like tire abrasion and extremely tiny plastic particles.

Roland Damann and his team are cur rently working intensively on a prototype capable of swimming in order to carry out hydraulic studies in open water.

Disruptive Innovation In Environmental Technology

He calls it the dream of his lifetime. We call it a disruptive innovation in environmental technology. To help it become a breakthrough, MicroBubbles GmbH was founded in April 2021 with the support of SPRIND—and a lot has happened since then. It is not just the swimming ring prototype—which will be launched in the fall of 2022. The team, which has an almost sensational ratio of women for the field of environmental technology (40 percent), has grown to 11 employees. The team contributes their diverse expertise in the areas of plant engineering, meteorology, oceanography, mechanical engineering, and plastic and process technology with passion. The right framework was set up at the inventors’ lab space in Bad Lippspringe near Paderborn: a 400-square meter laboratory that includes an experimental workshop. “We are able to conduct scalable experiments, be creative, carry out testing and work on practical implementations even better there now,” said Damann enthusiastically.

At another testing area on the grounds of the Paderborn City Water Drainage Facility, the team is also able to prove its technology for eliminating microplastics from waste water in practice starting in the fall of 2022. Three lab and office containers with measurement technology and a pilot system will be in operation for the study of waste water flows. Using a second pilot system in Bad Lippspringe, surface water will be studied starting at the same point in time.

All this still pertains to the core of the original idea, but MicroBubbles wants to take on a lot more challenges and establish an entire ecosystem in the future: “It is not enough to just provide the technology. That is why we will also develop the very first methods and instruments for identifying microplastic hotspots that we can approach with microflotation.” To Damann and his team, altering the ecosystem means bringing about change as soon as possible:

“We have to create more awareness regarding plastics consumption to contribute to its reduction.” Another vision is to develop a knowledge database on plastics and microplastics as a giant data supplier.

Last, but not least, Damann and his ambitious employees have taken up the cause of creating a global water strategy. “Half a billion people do not have access to drinking water and get some of their water from drinking pouches. This translates to an enormous amount of plastics, trace pollutants and micropollutants that end up in the environment. An additional 3.6 billion people do not have access to sanitary facilities.” The water treatment technology of today is essentially more than 2,000 years old, yet is not available in many parts of the world. “In concrete terms, this means we need a new water and wastewater technology architecture that also works in countries without wastewater infrastructure, and which can be used in a straightforward way there,” said Roland Damann in describing big goals for little bubbles.