Silica – a valuable and healthy geothermal by-product by Icelandic entrepreneurs
geoSilica "Kísil"-product via screenshot of the company website
Alexander Richter
21 Nov 2016
From waste water to valuable and healthy food supplement, the story of the geoSilica startup is an interesting example on how to utilise geothermal beyond energy and heat.
When talking about geothermal energy, we mostly refer to power generation from geothermal resources and maybe even about heating. But we have also talked about utilising geothermal for greenhouse heating, bathing in spas, even the extraction of minerals for batteries (lithium) or silica for creams. But there is supposedly even more one can do from geothermal brine.
A new company in Iceland has been looking into utilising silica from geothermal brine for human consumption for improving human health.
Built upon the university research thesis of Fida Abu Libdeh (CEO) and her co-founder Burkni Pálsson (CTO), the company released its first product in late 2014.
The geoSilica product is a liquid silica supplement made from 100% natural silica. As of now, geoSilica has already started developing a new product in order to increase its product range.
The company produces its product at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant near Reykjavik in Iceland.
In a two-step produces, the silica concentration in the separated geothermal water is increased many tenfold without changing the chemical composition of the water, and then gradually replaced by clean ground water from the area while keeping the silica concentration constant. The end product is highly pure silica in the form of extremely small silica particles in clean ground water. There are absolutely no chemicals of any kind are used in the production.
You can learn more about the company and its background via its website here.
Source: Interview with Fida Abu Lidbeh of GeoSilicia in Social X Market and geoSilica website.
