Canadian-British researchers find willow trees can clean municipal wastewater

June 23, 2021 |

In Canada, researchers have found a way to stem the flow of municipal wastewater: by filtering the waste through the roots of willow trees. Experimenting with a plantation in Quebec, the scientists estimate that over 30 million liters of primary wastewater per hectare can be treated using ‘bio-refinery’ annually.

Their results were published June 14 in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

This biomass can then be collected to make renewable lignocellulosic biofuels. An alternative to fossil fuels, these so-called second-generation biofuels do not directly compete for raw materials in the food chain

In their research, researchers from the Université de Montréal and a Canadian-British team of crop scientists, biochemists and chemical engineers from UdeM and Imperial College London used advanced metabolomic (chemical) profiling technology to also identify new extractable ‘green’ chemicals produced by the trees.

In addition to salicylic acid (best known as the main ingredient in aspirin), which willows produce in high quantities, an array of ‘green’ chemicals were enriched through sewage filtration, which have significant antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.

Category: Research

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