University of Birmingham
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Salinity Solutions secures £1 million investment from SQM Lithium Ventures
Salinity Solutions, an engineering tech start-up based in Birmingham (UK) has secured a GBP £1 million initial investment from SQM Lithium Ventures to fund the next stage of its growth. SQM Lithium Ventures, in return, will take ownership of a minority stake in the company, with the option to acquire additional equity in the future.
SQM Lithium Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of the lithium business of Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM), one of the world’s leading producers of battery-grade lithium chemicals. Salinity Solutions joins the SQM Lithium Ventures portfolio alongside industry-leading companies like Altilium Clean Technology and Electric Era.
Salinity Solutions developed HyBatch™, its ground-breaking batch reverse osmosis water treatment technology – the first in the world to be manufactured commercially – to dramatically reduce the environmental impact of water treatment. The technology uses less energy, purifies a higher amount of wastewater, generates less waste, and is more compact and portable than traditional reverse osmosis systems. The first of Salinity Solutions’ five registered patents has been approved in the European Union, China and the United States.
♻️ The potential for a plastic recycling facility to release microplastic pollution and possible filtration remediation effectiveness
With current plastic production and the growing problem of global plastic pollution, an increase and improvement in plastic recycling is needed. There is limited knowledge or assessment of microplastic pollution from point sources such as plastic recycling facilities globally. This pilot study investigates microplastic pollution from a mixed plastics recycling facility in the UK to advance current quantitative understanding of microplastic (MP) pollution release from a plastic recycling facility to receiving waters. Raw recycling wash water were estimate to contain microplastic counts between 5.97 106 – 1.12 × 108 MP m−3 (following fluorescence microscopy analysis). The microplastic pollution mitigation (filtration installed) was found to remove the majority of microplastics >5µm, with high removal efficiencies for microplastics >40µm. Microplastics <5µm were generally not removed by the filtration and subsequently discharged, with 59-1184 tonnes potentially discharged annually. It is recommended that additional filtration to remove the smaller microplastics prior to wash discharge is incorporated in the wash water management. Evidence of microplastic wash water pollution suggest it may be important to integrate microplastics into water quality regulations. Further studies should be conducted to increase knowledge of microplastic pollution from plastic recycling processes.