Small Business Q&A: Wayne Byrne from OxyMem

Kehlan talks with Wayne Byrne from OxyMem, which recently won the first Water Innovation SME Award in Europe for membrane technologies. Wayne explains what they do and why it’s so important for the world in which we live

Wayne what is OxyMem?

Oxymem has developed a breakthrough solution for waste water treatment, which really hasn’t changed that much in the past 100 years. Essentially what happens currently in waste water treatment around the world is that they bring together waste water and break down using organisms and oxygen using bubbles. Waste water is the food source and it is broken down by bacteria/organisms in the presence of oxygen, which is delivered through forced aeration, the bubbles.

It is these bubbles that result in huge energy losses because they do not spend very much time in the tank. Once they get to the surface they escape to atmosphere resulting in a loss of up to 70% of the energy required to create them in the first place. Our solution utilises gas-permeable membranes which allows the oxygen to permeate closer and more targeted to those bacteria which need it. This saves about four times as much energy usage as the current process.

What will this give to the industry globally?

At the moment the energy output for water treatment around the world, if you roll it up, is about 2% to 3% of overall global energy costs. So one of the biggest cost factors to the industry is actually the energy it uses to provide the treatment services. So our drinking water, our bathing water, and anything else that uses water must get to us in the highest of standards possible. That means a lot of processes and processes which are not necessarily cost-neutral because it is going to be consumed and used directly by people. It has to be the best it can be. OxyMem will help cut those energy costs considerably in the aeration process, so we’re solving a very real concern for the industry.

Where to now for OxyMem?

Believe or not we commenced operations in our Athlone facility at the beginning of January this year. We started out with just two employees. Now just six months down the line, we have 20 people working for our facility and we still have plans to grow. We have had quite an aggressive sales growth and by the end of this year we aim to have over 35 people working with us. It’s an incredibly exciting period. There are a lot of people who are putting in long hours to make sure this drives forward. I’m sure our families would like to see more of us, but that’s goes hand in hand with starting a new business and turning it into a potential market leader. It’s tough but you’re building something. So we have had a lot of hard work behind us but more hard work ahead for us.

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