Uni’s industry project is hailed a success
Panel grants partnership ‘outstanding’ accolade
22.06.2017 A joint project between Paisley’s university and a water treatment company that works in the whisky industry has been hailed a success.
University of the West of Scotland’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Kilbirnie-based Hydroklear Services Limited was awarded the highest grade of “outstanding” by the KTP Grading Panel for its achievement in meeting objectives.
Hydroklear, which provide solutions for water treatment equipment and services, works on developing a process for dealing with a tough environmental issue in the Scottish whisky industry.
Many tonnes of valuable copper are eroded from the copper stills while whisky is being made.
With such a large loss escaping into the environment, this not only is financially unacceptable, but it also creates huge possible danger to ecology, UWS says.
But many process methods available today merely trap the copper in another guise, without necessarily removing the risk
With these losses of copper on an ongoing basis, the replacement copper needs to be mined and processed before being shipped to the UK. This has an additional cost to the environment.
This KTP partnership was established to assist Hydroklear to develop a zero waste process for the removal of metal ions from distillery waste water.
Professor Andrew Hursthouse, assistant dean ( research and enterprise) of the school of science and sport, played a key role in KTP.
He said: “This was a challenging and extremely interesting project to be involved in and the outcomes will not just result in significant economic benefits for the whisky industry, but will also have a positive impact on the environment.”
Par t- funded by Government organisations led by Innovate UK, KTPs involve the forming of a partnership between a company and an academic institute.
The partnership also involves one or more high- calibre graduates – known as Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associates – to facilitate the transfer of skills and expertise.
Johnny Mone, head of enterprise and employer engagement at UWS, said: “The university has a wealth of research and knowledge exchange expertise and was delighted to have worked with Hydroklear on this hugely successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership.
“UWS is one of the most active knowledge transfer higher education institutions in Scotland, making the university a top performer in providing knowledge transfer services to industry.”