Dow Invests In OxyMem's Wastewater Treatment Technology

The Dow Chemical Company, announced recently its investment in OxyMem Ltd. The investment will accelerate the commercialisation of OxyMem’s promising wastewater treatment technology – the Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor (MABR). The MABR technology has the potential to bring wastewater treatment closer to energy neutrality by reducing energy consumption for aeration by up to 75 percent.

Snehal Desai, global business director for Dow Water and Process Solutions, commented, “Global water demand trends are making wastewater infrastructure a major challenge for populations and industries across the globe. OxyMem’s MABR technology shows excellent promise in lowering operational costs for the wastewater treatment process due to reduced energy demand. This also makes the technology a strong sustainability value proposition – it can help encourage greater adoption of water reuse and as a result, advance a circular economy that makes water a well-managed resource, sustained by advances in science and technology.”

Wayne Byrne, Managing Director of OxyMem, added, “I believe that we have an important technology that can make a sizeable contribution in the wastewater market where there is a significant need for more efficient infrastructure solutions. Securing the investment from Dow, an innovation leader augurs well for the future of the company. We look forward to an exciting journey with Dow Water & Process Solutions business on board.”

About Oxymem
OxyMem, a University College Dublin spinout, and fast growing Global Cleantech 100 company has been commercialising an innovative infrastructure solution to reduce costs for wastewater treatment – the Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor (MABR). OxyMem’s breakthrough technology tackles the industry’s biggest challenge – energy costs. Conventional wastewater treatment consumes 2-3% of a nations electricity production. This is due a 100 years reliance on bubble aeration for conventional treatment plants, which suffer high energy losses because of the oxygen transfer limitations in the process. OxyMem’s MABR does not have these limitations. OxyMem uses hollow fibre, gas permeable membranes, to support a fixed film ecosystem allowing for direct delivery of oxygen to the micro-organisms which break down the pollutants. OxyMem‘s drop in solution can be easily retrofit into existing infrastructure to improve capacity, achieves superior energy performance, with lower sludge production. For more information, visit ww.oxymem.com.

About The Dow Chemical Company
Dow combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from material, polymer, chemical and biological science to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow’s integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2015, Dow had annual sales of nearly $49 billion and employed approximately 49,500 people worldwide. The Company’s more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 179 sites in 35 countries across the globe. References to “Dow” or the “Company” mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. For more information, visit www.dow.com.