28 Far Site March 2017 Water. desalination + reuse

‘Our capex is on a par with traditional desal’

An installation of Voltea’s CapDi technology at a horticultre client in Mexico. Growers can adjust the level of salt in their irrgation water to enable optimal yield from tomato plants, and to grow peppers for the fi rst time

A singleVoltea CapDi

module

COMMERCIALISATION

• Company has a twofold go-to-market strategy comprising direct sales and system integrators

CHALLENGER

• Voltea sees itself as a challenger to RO in reuse

The commercialisation of Voltea’s electrodialysis-based desalination technology, CapDI, is happening apace says chief executive Bryan Brister.

The company’s go-to-market strategy is twofold: First, it has a direct sales force in Europe and north America; and second, it’s building out a network of system and application integrators. The strategy has reaped rewards, par-ticularly in the US, Mexico and Canada, which have supplied 70 of growth in the past 18 months. “I don’t see that letting up in the next two to three years. North America is going to continue to lead in terms of innovating, and implementing innovate tech-nologies,” says Brister.

So what is Voltea selling? Its CapDi (capacitative deionisa-tion) technology is based on the tried and tested process of electrodialysis. The CapDi units have two plates in between which water � ows, one having positively charged electrodes and the other negatively charged electrodes. The negatively charged salt molecules stick to the positively charged plate, and vice versa.

“It’s electrodialysis. There’s nothing unique about that,” says Brister. The clever — and patented — part, comes in the continuous regeneration process, whereby the polarity of the surfaces is � ipped in order to clean o� salt once they become saturated. To prevent the salt from simply jumping over to the oppositely charged plate, the plates are covered in a coating that prevents either negatively or positively charged salt molecules from moving back and forth.

“That gives us an elegant way to trap the salt in that middle � ow channel. We simply rinse

it away, and then � ip back to purifying again. It’s the lowest cost way to take salt out of water on the planet,” says Brister. The technology focuses on brackish water with salinity levels up to about 3,000 parts per million of total dissolved salts. In many cases, it is used as a � nal polishing step in water reuse systems in light commercial and industrial applications. Successful in-stallations have included in reuse systems for commer-

cial laundry operations, and

Water. desalination + reuse March 2017 Far Site 29

Q&AMARK SCHWEIZER

“Nanostone can fulfi l the long awaited potential of ceramic ultrafi ltration.”

• A year ago, we made the bold decision to expand our production by more than � ve-fold, and committed to develop a new, larger and more economical product for launch in Q2 2017. Over the next two years, we intend to deliver on these plans and make a success of our initial installations, three of which are operating well in China.

• They are designed to solve common membrane operating problems experienced by polymeric ultra� ltration (UF) plant owners and operators. We eliminate � bre breakage, short life, sensitivity to feed upsets, cleaning limitations and declining productivity over time. And we’re compatible with a universal rack or open platform system design, o� ering simpler operation, longer life and improved economics.

• More than a dozen � eld trials using various CM-151 prototypes over three years have allowed us to optimise product and process design for superior performance, reliability and ease of integration into standard polymeric UF universal racks. CM-151 has been independently proven to demonstrate more than 6.3 log cryptosporidium removal — the highest score for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — and is NSF 61/372 certi� ed. The product has also been undergoing advanced lifecycle testing to verify lifetime.

• Our research and development team developed a high-quality, nanotechnology-based membrane production approach that provides a high permeability, tight pore-size, true UF membrane. Our facility in Halberstadt, Germany, is ISO 9001 certi� ed, and product testing is consistent with US EPA requirements for drinking water. We have also automated key manufacturing processes to maximise throughput and control process conditions.

• Nanostone’s measured approach to market migration will help ensure success in each market and ultimately accelerate adoption of our product in large, globally scalable applications. Initially, we have focused on niche segments, such as industrial wastewater reuse in China, where ceramic membranes uniquely address end-user requirements like improved uptime and availability performance. With our launch in North America, we are starting on the path to becoming a real option for drinking water. As a stepping stone, we are taking on polymeric UF membranes in municipal wastewater and industrial water segments. Once they are proven, our plans include expanding our base markets globally, and adding desalination to our market segments.

Mark Schweizer is chief executive of Nanostone Water

As Nanostone’s new chief executive, what are your aspirations for the business?

How do you describe the innovation of your new CM-151 ceramic ultrafi ltration membranes?

How was the new product tested?

How has your production process changed?

What are the opportunities for your business in the mid to longer-term?

We optimised product and process design, including ease of integration with standard polymeric UF racks, through more than a dozen fi eld trials of prototypes over three years

automotive painting processes. In one horticulture application in Mexico, the growers wanted a better crop yield from their tomato plants, and had been unable to grow peppers owing to the salinity of their water.

“They asked us, ‘can your technology be used where in the morning we want to water to-matoes, and we want to take out only a little bit of the salt, but in the a� ernoon we want to water pepper plants and we need to take out more of the salt from the water’,” says Brister. “That’s one of neat, di� erentiating fac-tors about CapDi technology. You have a tremendous amount of precise control on how much salt you take out of the water.”

Operating costs for CapDI are two or three times lower than conventional RO because there’s no need for high water pressure. The capital cost is on a par with RO up to a capacity of about 500,000 to 750,000 US gallons a day (2,000 to 3,000 m3/d).

Voltea provides remote diagnostics and system control over the internet. “Anywhere you can log onto the internet, you can log onto our system and remotely adjust it,” says Brister.

The company was spun out of Unilever nine years ago, � rst as a research and development entity, and then as a com-mercialisation company when Brister joined three years ago. The chief executive earned a PhD in polymer science from the University of Southern Mississip-pi, joined GE in a research and development role; and moved to its corporate audit o¦ ce to learn � nance and accounting before leading GE’s Caribbean Basin desal business. He was one of the � ve founders of Seven Seas Water, and was later recruited by investors at Voltea.

The next two or so years will see continued commercialisation of the technology — including a launch where CapDi will be inte-grated with the products of the world’s largest consumer brands — and Brister hopes to challenge conventional desal vendors.

“In the past 18 months we’ve taken 48 per cent out of the capi-tal cost (capex) of getting a piece of CapDi equipment. We know we’ve got a much better operat-ing expense. The challenge has always been capex. We’ve gotten to a point now where our capex is on par with traditional desal.”