The pilot Microplastic Removal project in place at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) Wastewater Treatment Facility in Atlantic City.
Polygone Systems, a startup dedicated to removing harmful microplastics from waterways, opened a pilot Microplastic Removal project at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) Wastewater Treatment Facility in Atlantic City on September 12th. The project is the first of its kind to collect microplastic pollution from treated wastewater.
The pilot project that Polygone developed is a microplastic filtration system, known as the “Artificial Root Filter” which filters plastic particles from wastewater before it is released into the ocean. As currently designed, wastewater treatment plants do not treat microplastics, so a successful pilot could be reproduced at other wastewater treatment facilities.
Yidian Liu (left) and Nathaniel Banks (right) in front of the Educational Pavilion at the ACUA wastewater treatment facility.
The project was founded by Yidian Liu and Nathaniel Banks, who began this work as graduate students at Princeton University. While at Princeton, the team completed the Northeast Regional I-Corps Hub Propelus program and later went through the National I-Corps program.
It was in the regional I-Corps program where the two first got connected with the ACUA. While attending a conference as a part of their regional I-Corps Propelus program, Liu and Banks met the former president of the ACUA, which sparked the connection.
“The reason we actually have this pilot is because we did the I-Corps regional program,” Liu said. “I-Corps really set up the founding stone for our business development.”
Banks echoed Liu in reinforcing I-Corps role in their development, saying that participating in the regional program made them get out of the lab and see if their project was ready or if it was even worth spending time to continue to develop it. Their successful time during the regional program galvanized the team to continue on to the national program where they were able to build off of their work in the regional program, traveling to conferences and water treatment plants around the world.
“The National program really gave us a lot more exposure to different treatment plants, but also a greater understanding of the ecosystem that allowed us to design and pivot our technology to better fit them.,” Banks said. “So I-Corps has been instrumental in helping us actually refine and develop our technology productively.
In addition to the pilot filtration system installed at the ACUA site, Polygone opened an educational pavilion to inform the public about microplastic pollution. The exhibit details the different types of microplastic pollutants, their effects on the ecosystem, and showcases to visitors how the Polygone “Artificial Root Filter” works.
Polygone’s pilot project received funding from the NOAA Sea Grant Program Marine Debris Challenge Competition and the New Jersey CSIT Clean Tech Demonstration Grant Program. If the pilot is successful, Polygone plans to expand their efforts and implement their technology at other wastewater treatment plants.