Xergy Inc. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 09c

Description

The Company’s development is addressing one of the most basic human needs: access to potable water. Without adequate potable water, society succumbs to human suffering i.e. dehydration, disease and inevitably limited supply results in human conflict. There is therefore a need for an efficient, and cost effective method of producing quality potable water from low grade sources such as brackish or sea water serving small populations and isolated communities. The Company’s aim is bringing to commercial reality a reasonably low cost, high efficiency method of generating high quality potable water suitable for these small populations and isolated communities. The Company’s concept is to create a small scale integrated system for potable water supply using a custom water permeable ionomer membrane based vacuum assisted pervaporation distillation system coupled to passive solar non-potable water heating, to improve water purification rate. The system is further integrated with photovoltaic panels and a backup power system (electrolyzer/fuel cell) to make itself contained as well as on-demand electrochemical Ozone production to maintain the purity of the clean water produced. In Phase I the Company demonstrated that the potable water produced by our custom membrane pervaporation system is exceedingly pure, having less than 1/10 the salinity allowed as drinking water and, due to the nanoscale ionomer channels, full elimination of pathogens. The Company’s single stage, PEM Distillation system with integrated Ozone Disinfection system demonstrated many key features including (a) higher water purity, (b) 50% lower electrical demand, (c) total grid independence (and autonomy), (e) smaller overall footprint, (f) integrated hot water production, (g) the ability to efficiently process a wider range of saline water streams and (h) the ability to use low grade heating in the form of solar (water) heating that is very prevalent in developing nations. In phase II, the Company will develop and install a fully functional, independent, integrated, scalable and highly efficient 100-gallon / day membrane based vacuum desalination system utilizing passive thermal heating & enthalpy of vaporization recycling, providing the highest purity, sanitized via insitu disinfection, potable water (with optional hot water delivery) from seawater. Phase II development focuses on improved component performance, cost reduction and reduction to commercialization to reach the performance and cost goals allowing commercial success. Utilizing current technology, the small commercial desalination plants utilized in Antigua and Barbuda provide potable water at roughly 10x the cost of the large-scale plants in Singapore and Israel. There is both a human need and a commercial need for low cost small desalination plants which our technology addresses. In addition to the U.S. needs in rural and isolated areas such as outlying islands, there is a large need worldwide. While very large scale Reverse Osmosis with disinfection such as used high population density areas along a shore line is very cost effective, The Company’s technology fits into the small town, island, single home scale where current water solutions are high cost and with high environmental impact.