New wastewater recycling technology launched in Dubbo, Australia

A new way of recycling wastewater that its inventor says uses less energy and works faster than conventional systems has been built in Australia for the first time.

Troy Warry says his system is about 16 times more efficient at breaking down stubborn pollutants in wastewater than conventional methods.

The water treatment scientist said it was the product of years of "trial, error, and sleepless nights, and crying in the shower" for an end result which uses fewer chemicals and processes wastewater faster.

"There are a lot of advanced oxidation [systems] out there, but this is the first titanium dioxide-based one in the world where the catalyst is permanently immobilised inside the reactor while still remaining highly photoactive," he said.

"It uses a lot less energy, produces much cleaner water, destroys contaminants in a lot shorter time frame, and sustains high flow rates every day for long periods."

Dubbo backs first use in Australia

The new technology was developed and scaled through trials run by Mr Warry in Germany, Spain and Norway.

It has now been built in Central NSW as part of a new $7.8 million advanced wastewater treatment plant (AWTP), which Dubbo Regional Council switched on this week.

Squadron Energy contributed $3.6 million under an agreement that allows it to draw on the recycled water to build its three wind farms and a firming station in the Dubbo region.

Squadron CEO Rob Wheals said the company's investment was a way to reduce demand on local water resources so "drinking water is available for drinking", while leaving it as a legacy to benefit the community hosting its wind farms.

Dubbo mayor Josh Black said the arrangement had helped shore up water security in the region.

"[It] means we won't have to choose between drought and development," Mr Black said.

The AWTP, built next to Dubbo's existing Sewerage Treatment Plant, can process up to 700 megalitres per year of effluent that would otherwise be discarded.

While approvals are still underway to use the recycled water in construction, the council has contracted the University of Newcastle to test the effluent and find other community benefits, such as for use on sporting fields.

Innovation needed inland

University of Sydney head of civil engineering Professor Stuart Khan said the technology was "relatively rare" and he was not aware of it being used at full-scale in a town's wastewater plant.

He said he would need to see results before he could say whether it made a meaningful difference.

But Professor Khan said the approach should be encouraged because, unlike filtration methods such as reverse osmosis, it does not leave behind salty waste that is hard to dispose of inland.

"That's the sort of thing we need in inland communities, alternative ways of recycling water that are not membrane based and that's exactly what this is," he said.

'Much higher quality treated water'

A key highlight for Mr Warry is how the reactor destroys, rather than filters out, contaminants such as pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons, pharmaceutical residues, antibiotics, hormones and other persistent organic compounds.

"Instead of simply capturing those contaminants and creating another concentrated waste stream, the process attacks their chemical structure and tears the molecules apart," he said.

"By accelerating the reaction kinetics, we can destroy difficult contaminants much faster than traditional advanced oxidation, which can substantially reduce energy consumption while producing a much higher-quality treated water."

It has not surprised him that a regional council was the first to use the technology in Australia.

"They have a vision that they want to provide better water security," he said.

"Australia is going to have to reuse increasingly difficult water sources as populations grow, rainfall becomes less predictable and pressure on our existing supplies increases.

"It's ridiculous to think that all of the wastewater sitting in those lagoons is just getting wasted."