WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:03.560 It is not only the pill that women take for contraception. 00:04.520 --> 00:08.080 Men and women permanently excrete hormones that can get into the 00:08.080 --> 00:09.840 environment through the waste water. 00:11.620 --> 00:13.660 This is a problem for the cleaners. 00:14.000 --> 00:18.160 Hormones are one of the so-called eternal chemicals that can hardly be 00:18.160 --> 00:19.700 removed by natural processes. 00:21.740 --> 00:25.640 An investigation by the Federal Environment Office has shown that 00:25.640 --> 00:29.380 residues of steroid hormones can be detected in virtually all 00:29.380 --> 00:30.180 cleaners. 00:32.520 --> 00:36.560 Extremely small amounts can already disrupt the hormone balance of 00:36.560 --> 00:37.920 animals and humans in the environment. 00:39.420 --> 00:43.920 The problem is that the existing processes to remove these substances 00:43.920 --> 00:47.960 from the waste water are very energy-intensive and expensive. 00:48.720 --> 00:52.520 A research team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has now 00:52.520 --> 00:59.760 managed to filter out the hormones and to decompose them into their 00:59.760 --> 01:00.520 components. 01:01.620 --> 01:06.420 Steroid hormones are part of the endocrine disruptors that occur in 01:06.420 --> 01:10.280 the waste water because we excrete them in all possible conditions and 01:10.280 --> 01:12.180 treatments in medicine. 01:13.300 --> 01:18.440 The pill is an anthropogenic hormone that is produced like many other 01:18.440 --> 01:18.860 drugs. 01:19.840 --> 01:22.840 But we all excrete hormones every day. 01:23.440 --> 01:30.540 Especially during pregnancy, when we take menopause hormones, but also 01:30.540 --> 01:34.320 normal healthy people, women and men, excrete hormones every day. 01:35.280 --> 01:39.640 Other pollutants, such as pesticides, are these endocrine disruptors 01:39.640 --> 01:43.420 that have an effect on our body in very small amounts, in nanograms 01:43.420 --> 01:48.240 per liter, and disturb normal hormone processes. 01:48.900 --> 01:52.740 We either suppress them or release them unintentionally. 01:53.440 --> 01:59.720 This has a great impact on our fertility, on reproduction and on other 01:59.720 --> 02:02.980 processes that are controlled by hormones in our body, such as 02:02.980 --> 02:04.020 processes in the brain. 02:04.840 --> 02:09.760 Professor Andreas-Iris Schäfer is an expert in water treatment 02:09.760 --> 02:13.020 technology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. 02:13.820 --> 02:17.480 With her international team of researchers at the Institute for 02:17.480 --> 02:22.840 Advanced Membrane Technology, she works on alternative methods to 02:22.840 --> 02:27.200 remove the steroid hormone from the waste water. 02:27.200 --> 02:31.880 The currently practiced procedures are not only expensive and require 02:31.880 --> 02:36.300 a lot of energy, they also have the disadvantage that the filtered 02:36.300 --> 02:38.900 toxins somehow have to be disposed of. 02:39.760 --> 02:41.160 There are different procedures. 02:41.160 --> 02:43.420 In Switzerland, for example, a lot of work is done with ozone. 02:44.140 --> 02:47.040 In Germany, more with adsorption. 02:47.940 --> 02:52.900 My background, which comes from Australia, was membrane filtration, i 02:52.900 --> 02:52.900 .e. 02:53.100 --> 02:55.000 nanofiltration or reverse osmosis. 02:55.400 --> 02:58.820 This works with various advantages and disadvantages, always very high 02:58.820 --> 03:00.300 costs and a lot of energy. 03:01.000 --> 03:07.100 If we look at nanofiltration, for example, concentrates are processed. 03:07.220 --> 03:09.760 That means we have another waste water that somehow has to be treated. 03:10.940 --> 03:14.860 Of course, there will be a process where waste water is removed 03:14.860 --> 03:17.200 without further waste water being generated. 03:17.760 --> 03:22.600 An example of the Karlsruhe researchers is the electrocatalysis, in 03:22.600 --> 03:25.360 which the pollutants are not only filtered out. 03:26.060 --> 03:26.640 Destroyed. 03:26.700 --> 03:28.600 I always take the picture of the catalyst. 03:29.400 --> 03:35.420 Like a car in the exhaust, something is simply converted so as not to 03:35.420 --> 03:36.060 be harmful afterwards. 03:36.580 --> 03:39.900 This can be achieved by electrochemical oxidation, for example with 03:39.900 --> 03:41.880 the help of carbon nanotubes. 03:43.580 --> 03:48.880 We can imagine that we have a membrane that has carbon tubes or 03:48.880 --> 03:49.640 carbon. 03:50.500 --> 03:55.620 This material absorbs these hormones and concentrates them in the 03:55.620 --> 03:56.160 material. 03:56.600 --> 04:00.560 Then I apply a voltage to this material while I filter through. 04:01.100 --> 04:07.180 Then I oxidize these substances to smaller substances, even up to CO2. 04:07.420 --> 04:10.140 It's about an electron transfer that these substances are simply 04:10.140 --> 04:16.120 oxidized on the surface of the material and are then dismantled, 04:16.240 --> 04:17.860 dismantled and destroyed. 04:18.000 --> 04:22.860 Since the process is less filtration than catalysis, it can be done 04:22.860 --> 04:24.620 with significantly less energy. 04:26.100 --> 04:27.540 It is already filtered. 04:27.760 --> 04:32.080 We have a membrane, but it has much larger pores than we would need to 04:32.080 --> 04:32.640 hold it back. 04:33.340 --> 04:36.420 For this reason, we need less energy because we need less pressure. 04:37.580 --> 04:39.900 It may also clog later. 04:39.980 --> 04:40.740 We are not there yet. 04:41.220 --> 04:48.020 First of all, we manage to dismantle the water that runs through the 04:48.020 --> 04:50.380 membrane in a relatively short time. 04:51.440 --> 04:56.140 The residence time of the substances or the water in this membrane is 04:56.140 --> 05:00.920 in the range of seconds and very small fractions of seconds. 05:01.560 --> 05:04.040 At this time, it can react and dismantle. 05:04.140 --> 05:08.440 Carbon nanotubes are very suitable for this process. 05:08.440 --> 05:09.840 They have some advantages. 05:10.000 --> 05:11.420 It also works with other materials. 05:11.620 --> 05:13.000 But the material has to be conductive. 05:13.580 --> 05:18.940 The material also has to absorb these hormones so that they are 05:18.940 --> 05:21.200 present on the surface and are also concentrated. 05:23.360 --> 05:26.660 They like each other. 05:26.760 --> 05:29.680 The hormones like to go to the surface much better than into the 05:29.680 --> 05:29.980 water. 05:30.670 --> 05:33.900 This way, they are on site where the electrons can be transferred. 05:34.800 --> 05:36.180 And then this dismantling works. 05:36.380 --> 05:40.200 Not immediately in CO2, but in other products that are less active. 05:40.580 --> 05:45.820 When it comes to cleaning drinking water, nanomaterials will not be 05:45.820 --> 05:46.600 able to be used. 05:47.420 --> 05:49.440 They are suspected to cause cancer. 05:50.600 --> 05:52.380 The nanotubes are relatively inexpensive. 05:52.380 --> 05:56.380 The colleagues at UCLA in California are doing a great job. 05:58.800 --> 06:03.520 If I want to work in drinking water, we can say goodbye to nanotubes. 06:04.340 --> 06:09.040 This asbestos of time will never be approved for drinking water. 06:09.100 --> 06:11.480 For dewatering, it looks more relaxed. 06:11.920 --> 06:15.160 You just have to be careful what is allowed and how the procedures 06:15.160 --> 06:15.680 are. 06:16.130 --> 06:20.620 There are also other methods that do not work with carbon nanotubes, 06:20.980 --> 06:22.720 but with larger materials. 06:24.420 --> 06:26.740 There is everything possible. 06:26.880 --> 06:31.240 In the past, our research on adsorption worked with active carbon. 06:31.960 --> 06:35.540 Relatively large particles in several hundred micrometers. 06:35.960 --> 06:39.660 But they have very small pores. 06:40.060 --> 06:43.920 We have something bigger that excludes this risk, but still works very 06:43.920 --> 06:44.180 well. 06:45.420 --> 06:49.320 There are many candidates for electrocatalysis. 06:50.480 --> 06:53.840 The approach of the KIT team is basic research. 06:54.580 --> 06:57.560 In the laboratory scale, feasibility has been proven. 06:58.200 --> 07:02.620 The next step is to implement it on an industrial scale. 07:02.860 --> 07:07.080 We first look at the feasibility with synthetic water. 07:07.940 --> 07:12.000 Pure water with hormones and a salt background. 07:12.660 --> 07:13.460 Then we run it. 07:14.240 --> 07:19.200 So that we can understand in a pure system and see what limits this 07:19.200 --> 07:19.580 degradation. 07:20.020 --> 07:23.340 Then we look at what would be in real water. 07:24.840 --> 07:27.340 Organic substances or other salts. 07:28.000 --> 07:32.240 Then we continue the studies in a small system. 07:32.780 --> 07:35.520 Then we look at how to make it bigger. 07:36.080 --> 07:38.580 Scaling a membrane is very easy. 07:38.720 --> 07:40.080 The membrane technology can do that. 07:40.420 --> 07:42.360 Square meters are not a big problem. 07:43.120 --> 07:47.780 It is much easier to put an electrode in there than light in a 07:47.780 --> 07:48.580 photocatalysis. 07:49.140 --> 07:51.720 The feasibility of upscaling will work very well. 07:52.720 --> 07:59.120 Whether the membrane works and all the other dirt is in there, it will 07:59.120 --> 08:01.740 probably need a pre-treatment. 08:02.260 --> 08:04.840 We have great ideas in the photocatalysis. 08:04.960 --> 08:08.380 How we can do it on upscaling. 08:09.300 --> 08:11.280 But the funding does not follow. 08:11.520 --> 08:15.420 We need the good engineers that we train. 08:16.880 --> 08:20.960 We also need the funding to run pilot projects. 08:22.740 --> 08:26.840 This upscaling costs a lot more than small experiments in the 08:26.840 --> 08:27.120 laboratory. 08:27.720 --> 08:31.920 We need good partnerships with the funders to implement this. 08:32.980 --> 08:39.220 According to the latest EU guidelines, a fourth cleaning stage must be 08:39.220 --> 08:40.240 implemented by the cleaning plants by 2027. 08:41.680 --> 08:45.560 This means that there is a great interest on the part of the industry 08:45.560 --> 08:48.800 in a functioning electrocatalysis. 08:48.800 --> 08:53.620 For the water processing technician it is clear that the improved 08:53.620 --> 08:56.860 water quality will not be at zero tariff. 08:57.960 --> 09:00.720 In Germany, what is currently being done, these guidelines are coming 09:00.720 --> 09:02.020 for these trace pollutants. 09:02.240 --> 09:05.800 It concerns the dewatering treatment and in this case the fourth 09:05.800 --> 09:06.660 cleaning stage. 09:06.860 --> 09:09.860 A fourth cleaning stage will not cost anything. 09:09.940 --> 09:16.880 I need another stage for dewatering cleaning and this will cost us a 09:16.880 --> 09:17.100 lot. 09:18.500 --> 09:20.380 But I think we have to get there. 09:22.120 --> 09:25.880 A car costs more than without a catalyzer and that was also possible. 09:26.660 --> 09:31.700 For Prof. Schäfer one more reason to be much more careful in the 09:31.700 --> 09:36.000 future with which toxins we pollute our environment which then have to 09:36.000 --> 09:38.000 be removed with great technological effort. 09:39.200 --> 09:43.420 I think we just need a little more understanding that everything we do 09:43.420 --> 09:48.040 has an environmental consequence and maybe think about which 09:48.040 --> 09:52.780 pharmaceuticals we produce, how we use them, which pollutants we use, 09:52.900 --> 09:53.700 also in the industry. 09:54.420 --> 09:57.160 Everything we use will end up somewhere in the cycle. 09:57.820 --> 10:01.300 And I think if we are all a little more aware and maybe flush a little 10:01.300 --> 10:05.680 less pills down the toilet, then it might be a little easier to clean 10:05.680 --> 10:06.600 up afterwards.