Nanobubbles: Miracle solution or just another hype?

by Erik Hempel, The Nor-Fishing Foundation

Every now and then, a technological innovation that is supposed to have wonderful results and wide application comes along. I was introduced to such an innovation recently at a seminar in Oslo. The South African company Fine Bubbles Technologies (Pty) Ltd. introduced me to nanobubbles, - tiny, tiny bubbles that are dispersed in water. If this technology delivers what it promises, we may have a new and promising way to get rid of sea lice, clean up our polluted waters, and stimulate growth in farmed fish.
 

Nanobubbles are extremely small bubbles, one million times smaller than small visible bubbles. They have the ability to change the normal characteristics of water. While a normal bubble rises rapidly to the surface of the water, and a microbubble rises, then collapses and disappears, the nanobubble stays in the water or sinks, and it can remain in the water for several months They have nearly 99 percent efficiency in delivering oxygen to the water as there are essentially no losses of oxygen escaping to the atmosphere.

In order to produce these nanobubbles, the company has developed the NanoBubbler, a small apparatus that is simple to install, uses no chemicals, has low operational costs (low energy use), and can run on solar power. The NanoBubbler™ has been tested and proven to produce nanobubbles with an average size of 76 nanometre in diameter.  Applications of the technology include water purification, medical cleaning applications, oxygenation of fish dams, and even cleaning oil spills.

According to Paul Botha, founder of Fine Bubble Technologies (Pty) Ltd, a decade of research has gone into developing the technology which has a number of applications in water treatment. For aquaculture, it is interesting because trials have shown that the use of nano bubbles significantly increases growth. Trials on sweetfish (Plecoglossus altivelis) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) showed enhanced growth. For sweetfish, the weight of the fish increased by 240 percent in just three weeks use of nano bubbles, compared to 113 percent for the control group. For rainbow trout, the results were similar: the weight increased by 196 percent in six weeks of nanobubbles treatment, compared to 159 percent for the control group.

Read more, HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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