A new company launched by Hertz Fellow Ruby Lai aims to develop a sustainable, low-energy, low-cost toilet system that reuses flushwater and requires no sewer system.
In an average American home, toilets use more water than any other appliance, accounting for nearly 30% of indoor water use. More efficient toilets could save a household thousands of gallons of water and hundreds of dollars each year. Yet few scientists or engineers have spent much time thinking about how to make more sustainable and efficient toilet systems.
Hertz Fellow Ruby Lai has received an award from the Hertz Foundation’s Harold Newman and David Galas Entrepreneurial Initiative to support her work addressing this challenge. Lai will use the $25,000 grant to help her company, Foss Toilets, develop prototypes of an energy-efficient and low-cost water treatment system that allows the cleaning and reuse of sewer water.
“There are ongoing water shortages happening in places around the world, where we’re depleting our aquifers,” says Lai. “Our toilet system uses no outside water, so it can really put a dent in water use.”
“A sewer-less toilet system could help address sanitation access around the world, which is a major killer that provides a transmission route for dangerous communicable diseases,” says Lai. “Our toilet system uses no outside water, so it can really put a dent in water use, which is a growing issue in the dry, drought-prone Western United States.”
Since 2012, the Harold Newman and David Galas Entrepreneurial Initiative has provided financial and professional support to Hertz Fellows who propose innovative entrepreneurial projects. The awards not only come with up to $25,000 in funding, but also provide mentoring and feedback from successful entrepreneurs within the fellows’ community.
Lai earned her PhD in physics at Stanford University, where she developed a new model for catalysis of silicon etching reactions for applications in solar cell technology. When she graduated, she was looking for a new applied science challenge and jumped at the opportunity to work at the Gates Foundation in the Water Sanitation and Hygiene team, as part of the Gates and Hertz Internship Program.
“I’m a technologist, and I want to use technology to help improve people’s lives, make our planet safer, and reduce our environmental impact,” says Lai. “I had seen how other Hertz Fellows’ work with the Gates Foundation had really enabled them to take technical work and make impacts in the world.”
Lai was assigned to the Gates Foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge,” working as a research analyst who evaluated other scientists’ proposed toilet systems. But she quickly discovered that she had ideas of her own and began designing a system that could quickly clean the water flushed down a toilet.
Over the next few years, Lai teamed up with researchers at Duke University, Columbia University, Stanford University and the Gates Foundation to come up with a new toilet system that can reuse the water with every flush.
Lai’s system works by first introducing microbes that digest biological materials at high temperature. This high temperature allows the reactions to take place over just a few hours (in most water treatment methods, reactions are at room temperature and take days or weeks). Then, the treated water is heated even more, so that clean water evaporates and can be collected. What’s left behind is a tiny, dried-out brick of material.
Because the water system is fully contained and does not need to be connected to a typical septic system, it could be easily installed in places with water shortages or delicate environments where septic systems are prohibited or limited. All the system requires is a small amount of electricity to power its heating element.
“It really starts to address our aspirations for a lower-footprint, eco-friendly home,” says Lai.
Already, Foss Toilets has tested their working prototype over several months at their headquarters in Seattle and another, fully-automated prototype which will soon be tested at Duke University. The Harold Newman and David Galas Entrepreneurial Initiative money supported a third, more refined demonstration prototype.
Lai says that the Hertz Community has been invaluable in her journey toward creating the system, from supporting her education and enabling the Gates Foundation internship to providing her with connections to other scientists who have launched companies.
“Just being able to learn from the experiences of other Hertz Fellows, and see that other fellows have successfully pursued off-the-beaten-path ideas, really gives me an example of what I can achieve, and the confidence to follow through on my ideas,” says Lai.
About the Hertz Foundation
Founded in 1957, the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation accelerates solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, from enhancing national security to improving human health. Through the Hertz Fellowship, the Foundation identifies the nation’s most promising young innovators and disruptors in science and technology, empowering them to become the future leaders who keep our country safe and secure. Today, a community of 1,305 Hertz Fellows are a powerful, solution-oriented network of our nation’s top scientific minds, working to address complex problems and contributing to the economic vitality of our country. Learn more at hertzfoundation.org
