Lab partnership for Brightwater Tools’ Novel Freeze Concentration Technology

Many rural Vermont communities face significant barriers to housing and economic development because of wastewater infrastructure limitations. Lack of housing is one of the most pressing challenges facing the state. Traditional septic systems often require more land than is available in village centers, and the lack of wastewater capacity is a serious limiting factor.

Rural communities need new approaches that can support housing growth while protecting natural resources and improving climate resilience. Aging wastewater systems can contribute to nitrate contamination in wells, nutrient runoff, harmful algal blooms, and declining water quality in rivers and lakes. Despite advances in wastewater technology, developers, engineers, and municipal leaders often lack practical guidance on how to evaluate and implement innovative alternatives.

Brightwater Tools has developed an innovative building-scale wastewater treatment system that transforms blackwater from toilets into a safe, reusable fertilizer product through digestion, concentration, pasteurization, and filtration. The novel technology creates a circular system that recovers nutrients, conserves water, and reduces the environmental footprint of wastewater management. Distributed treatment systems can enable housing and commercial development in communities where traditional septic systems or centralized sewer infrastructure are not viable options.

This project will create a comprehensive implementation toolkit that developers, architects, engineers, and planners can use to evaluate and design projects incorporating Brightwater’s nutrient recovery technology. The toolkit will provide guidance on project feasibility, regulatory compliance, system design, performance modeling, stakeholder engagement, and long-term operation and maintenance. It will help simplify the decision-making process for adopting distributed wastewater infrastructure and accelerate deployment in rural communities.

In addition to producing the toolkit, the project will identify a demonstration site and development partners for a future installation in Vermont.

Brightwater Tools will lead the project in collaboration with the University of Vermont Casella Center for Circular Economy and Sustainability and faculty experts in environmental engineering and sustainable resource management. Together, they will provide the technical expertise needed to develop the implementation toolkit, evaluate regulatory requirements, and support outreach to developers and engineering firms. The project will also engage a UVM undergraduate student who will assist with research, data collection, literature reviews, and toolkit development, providing hands-on experience in innovative wastewater management and sustainable infrastructure.