European Inventor Award 2014 goes to a biomimetic process ...

Danish entrepreneur Peter Holme Jensen has developed a water filtration membrane that mimics the natural process of biological cells. He has been nominated for the 2014 European Inventor Awards in the SME category.

The doctor in protein chemistry and CEO Peter Holme Jensen, 43, together with his team Danielle Keller and Claus Hélix-Nielsen, succeeded in mimicking the natural movement of water through a protein called aquaporin. This is how water is filtered in nature before it reaches the inside of cells. A protein on the membranes of biological cells allows the passage (transport) of water molecules without any ions. These are the aquaporins, a family of proteins discovered in 1992 by the American doctor Peter Agre and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003. Several hundred aquaporins have been discovered in nature to date.

The research of the Dane Peter Holme Jensen aims to to imitate this natural process (biomimicry) . Current methods of water filtration, particularly to achieve better than pure drinking water, require creating pressure differences to move water through a filtration membrane. These processes are very energy intensive and the finer the pores of the filtration membrane, the more likely it is that minerals, including salt, will clog the membrane, making the system less efficient.

Ultra pure water, filtration and osmotic energy

After 7 years of research, Peter Holme Jensen's small company, prosaically named Aquaporin, has succeeded in producing a biomimetic membrane. This is an enormous step forward in the production of ultra-pure water, as the process is very energy-efficient. The entrepreneur is convinced that his biomembrane process could play a major role in the future in solving the issue of water filtration worldwide.

The company is now at the industrialisation stage and has concluded partnerships with several major groups, notably for the production of ultra-pure water, used by the electronics and pharmaceutical industries. Water filtration is obviously the other potential market for this technology, a market estimated at nearly 300 billion euros. The use of aquaporins holds further promise, this time in energy production. Indeed, the use of these membranes opens the way to osmotic energy produced in estuaries in particular.

http://www.lesechos.fr/thema/0203508770212-l-eau-ultra-pure-d-aquaporin-672214.php