Cambrian Innovation secures 3 contracts for advance biotechnologies

Cambrian Innovation has announced that it has won three prestigious contracts to further develop biotechnologies to improve water treatment, testing and remediation.

One contract is from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the other two from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), confirm Cambrian’s effort to harness biotechnology to improve water management.

It has secured $450,000 for three Phase I contracts from NIH and DoD, totaling the fund amount to $1.6 million so far. Once the Phase I construction is completed, the company will receive an additional $3 million between 2015 and 2016.

Developing reliable renewable sources of water and effectively monitoring water quality are two of today’s greatest resource challenges. These contracts enable Cambrian Innovation to apply biotechnology expertise to provide tangible, strategic benefits to national security and human health, said, Matthew Silver, CEO, Cambrian Innovation.

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By 2020, the DOD has set a net-zero energy goals to be attained for Army and Navy. Cambrian’s technology harness the bioenergy released during treatment process, which reduces the energy intensity, installation costs, and footprint for wastewater treatment systems, providing more access to clean water.

This technology has already been commercialized at industrial scale in the EcoVolt product. The contracts will help in propagating the next generation of systems which can extract more clean electricity from wastewater.

This technology from Cambrian will design a microbial fuels cell system that will use the sewage generated to provide electricity for the sewage treatment plant. It is eager to see how this technology can integrate into company’s operations, said, Terry Landreth, supervisor, Energy Management Office, Robins Air Force Base.

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The other two contracts awarded by NIH were for treating contamination in groundwater. According to the first contract, Cambrian can treat contamination from the petroleum industry while simultaneously generating renewable biogas for electricity generation.

The second NIH contract is meant for Cambrian’s sensor platform having a rapid-response, field capable arsenic sensor for groundwater. Cambrian’s method is based on biology and does not generate any hazardous waste, as in prevailing methods.

Sabeena Wahid
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