GE And Partners Invest In Israeli Water Tech Company

An American company will help fund an Israeli company that uses microbial fuel cells to turn waste water into an energy source, Greenbang.com reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, Energy Technology Ventures, a joint venture of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips, has decided to invest an undisclosed amount in the Israeli company Emefcy Ltd. This is Energy Technology Ventures’ first investment in a non-U.S.-based company and is also its first investment related to water.

Emefcy was founded in early 2008 by serial water technology entrepreneurs Eytan Levy and Ronen Shechter. The company is marked as one of the most promising water technology start-up companies and has received technology leadership awards such as The Guardian’s Cleantech 100, Global Water Technologies top 10, Artemis Top 50 and more.

Emefcy’s technology uses the principle of a fuel cell to generate electricity directly from the water. Its “electrogenic bioreactor” features an anaerobic anode chamber connected to a cathode chamber by an ion exchange membrane, produces electricity as organic matter in waste water decays and drives a current through the fuel cell.

This is different from other systems which use aerobic processes or anaerobic digestion to produce methane (natural gas) from the decomposition of organic material in waste water.

The technology generates electricity and also produces treated water as a by-product. The result transforms waste water treatment “from an energy-intensive, cost-intensive and carbon-intensive process, into an energy-generating and carbon-reducing process.”Read more here