Tauriga Sciences Inc (fka TAUG)

[2bStealthy]

Cincinnati company launches million-dollar pilot to transform sewage with tiny robots

Mar 28, 2014, 12:02pm EDT

Andy Brownfield
Reporter
Cincinnati Business Courier

A Cincinnati-based company is launching a $1.7 million pilot project with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati to use tiny bacterial robots to turn sewage into electricity.

The five-phase pilot will be the first commercial test of the Pilus Energy Electrogenic Bioreactor bacterial robots.

Pilus Energy uses bacterial robots called BactoBots that metabolize wastewater and harvest direct current electricity to produce economically important gasses. The startup was recently acquired by New York-based Tauriga Sciences Inc.

The EPA learned about Pilus through the Confluence water technology cluster, which brings together local private business, government and research institutions to innovate new methods to treat and protect water. Confluence earlier this week hosted other water clusters at the EPA in Cincinnati for a first-of-its-kind conference.

“The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati is excited to be the world’s first deployment site for this innovative technology,” MSD deputy director Biju George said in a news release. “Due to our location, partners, specialized facilities and personnel, we are perfectly suited to be the pilot site. The Tauriga Sciences value proposition has the promise to change the wastewater industry.”

Much of the initial work will be performed at the EPA Test and Evaluation Facility in Cincinnati.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/03/28/cincinnati-company-launches-million-dollar-pilot.html