FHNC LTD. CO. — Environmental Protection Agency SBIR Phase I: 20-OSAPE-1B

Description

Fats, oils and greases (FOGs) cause 75% of sewer systems in the US to operate at 50% capacity, cost US cities over $20 billion in sewer maintenance, and cause over 40,000 sewer overflows annually. Most commercial kitchens are required by law to remove FOGs with a grease interceptor from wastewater before emitting into public sewers.<br/> <br/>In order to reduce sewer maintenance costs and overflows while increasing sewer capacities, FHNC Ltd. Co. has developed a proprietary, point of source sewage treatment device capable of removing over 95% of FOGs and 100% of large solids from restaurants’ waste steam. The device relies on a tri-stage hydrocylone which separates the liquids with centrifugal force; a similar device is used in oil fields to separate water from fracturing<br/> fluid. <br/> <br/> Restaurants use significant amounts of water and place a heavy load on public sewers. The average restaurant consumes 3,000 - 7,000 gallons of water per day. Over 50% of water is consumed in the kitchen and 34% in restrooms and irrigation. <br/> <br/> Our technology when paired with appropriate gray water processing hardware can re-use the kitchen effluent to flush toilets in the restrooms and 600,000 restaurants in the US consuming about 3 billion gallons of water per day.<br/> <br/> The grease interceptor, originally patented in 1884, works well in a laboratory but is only 40-70% effective at removing FOGs in real world conditions. In comparison, the FHNC Ltd. Co. sewage treatment device is more than 95% effective in removing those same FOGs.<br/> <br/> By removing nearly all FOGs from the effluent stream, this technology increases public sewer capacity and has the potential to significantly<br/> decrease sewer overflows. It also enables the kitchen effluent stream to be re-used as non-potable water (flush toilets) before it enters the public sewer. It is possible to reduce restaurant water use in the US by 1 billion gallons per day with this technology.<br/> <br/> A Phase I SBIR grant will enable FHNC to test the existing device’s outflows in real-world restaurant environments to determine what further processes are necessary to reach non-potable (gray) water as defined by the EPA. The test results will then be used to design, prototype and test hardware that customers can optionally add to our existing device.<br/>