The energy savings for Agua Via work by making sure that all the elements of the system are designed to operate at the lowest energy possible under the laws of physics and chemistry while meeting all the operational constraints of the aqueous environment.
The major energy-saving component in the Agua Via system is the 1-atomic layer thick membrane. Gravity – the weight of the water alone – provides the driving force for Purification. For Desalination, a Forward Osmosis system increases the yield.
At 0.5nm, the 1-atomic layer thick membrane is as thin as possible under the laws of nature – thinner than carbon nanotubes. The “pores” are actually orifices offering virtually no resistance to the flow of water; it is as if the membrane was not there at all except for its ability to select water and reject salts. Because high pressure is not required, the nanomembrane does not need the thickness and bulk of conventional polymeric membranes to survive microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration or RO pressures. Physics calculations indicate that the energy expenditure for a water molecule to enter and pass through the membrane is near zero.
Although the ultra thin nature of the membrane is the dominant factor in Agua Via’s energy savings, there are many additional details that further contribute to energy savings or other cost reductions. Take the structure of the purification pore as an example: it is a modification of the natural aquaporin structure, the “water superhighway” in the membranes of cells. But the design of the pore has been modified to enhance water transport and reduce energy significantly over the natural structure.
In another example, the pore design and the protective layer can be optimized to encourage “water ordering,” the phenomena in which water molecules line up neatly and speed their own passage through the pore by traveling in an orderly line rather than in a jostling crowd.
· “Most Atomically Precise Material Ever Built”
· Biomimicry
· Water/Energy
· Full Spectrum Filtration
· Small Footprint – Distributed Systems
· Engineers & Biologists: New Horizons
Agua Via’s products are based on the Covalent one-atomic-layer thick membranes. No – these aren’t graphene. These are organic membranes made with atom-by-atom precision to create the most atomically precise material ever built. Designed and constructed using classical pharmaceutical-style chemistry, this power has been brought to bear on creating a material: membranes for use in water treatment. Even creating a major new pharmaceutical would not provide as much benefit to people and planet as bringing this power to the world of water.
Although both “polymer chemistry” and “organic chemistry” have “chemistry” in their names, there are orders of magnitude differences in control, performance and the resulting benefits. The old rules of polymeric membranes do not apply.
The creation of the membranes began with by understanding the huge list of problems being faced in the world of water. In addition to the generally known challenges, such as the need to reduce energy consumption, the operational demands of water systems are brutally difficult.
The next step was to ask how all of those problems could be solved by the membrane itself. Could the membrane itself solve the problem – whether the problem was reducing maintenance requirements, reducing fouling and scaling, removing a newly regulated contaminant, reducing energy consumption, reducing capital expense? Or were the traditional solutions of high energy use, many pre-treatment systems, demanding maintenance regimes unavoidable?
The membranes are designed and engineered to incorporate as many of the complete needs for water treatment in at the atomic scale. The benefits are ultra-high purity, the lowest energy possible under the laws of nature, small footprint, low maintenance, higher yields, smaller waste streams which result in lower costs of building, operating and maintaining water systems.
The key technology components delivering benefits are:
1. Biomimicry and atomic precision. By mimicking over a dozen of Nature’s techniques, you gain great control of filtration, high purity water, low energy use, reduced maintenance, smaller footprint, higher yields and reduced waste streams.
2. Full Spectrum Filtration: providing a new paradigm for water filtration based on the human kidney. The human kidney has a profound and simple paradigm: it keeps everything vital to life, and throws everything else away.
3. Energy. With a one-atomic-layer thick membrane, energy demand is the lowest possible. The long quest of membrane technology has been to combine high specificity with low energy. With complete atomic precision in filtration and a one-atomic-layer thick membrane, that goal is achieved. The energy demands of the Agua Via purification system are so low, it can be powered by gravity. And then there are even more ways to save energy.
4. Mix&Match Customization with Programmable Pores. Not only can the membranes be customized to produce the desired product water, these membranes can also be customized to other characteristics of your feedstock water. The goal is reduce or eliminate pre-treatments, post-treatments and maintenance requirements.
5. Small Footprints and Distributed systems.
***
On schedule to be in the field in 2020, we hope to see Agua Via product deliver profound benefits.
TECHNOLOGY
· “Most Atomically Precise Material Ever Built”
· Biomimicry
· Water/Energy
· Full Spectrum Filtration
· Small Footprint – Distributed Systems
· Engineers & Biologists: New Horizons
BIOMIMICRY
Biomimicry as the inspiration for engineered systems. Nature’s power is engineered into a product. In biological systems – plants and animals – huge volumes of water are decontaminated at low energy and low pressure with no fouling, scaling, pre-treatments, post-treatments or maintenance.
Nature is the inspiration for how to move water at high flux and low energy, how to do precision separations, and how to prevent fouling and scaling. Then, using the organic chemistry toolkit, we engineer for better efficiency than Nature has, new capabilities, lower costs, and better performance.
Borrowing over a dozen water strategies from plants, animals, and human physiology, Nature’s inspiration are incorporated into the membrane designs. One of the most important inspirations comes from aquaporins. Aquaporins – “aqua” meaning “water” and “porin” for “pores” – are the water superhighways that transport water in and out of the cells of all living things.
The aquaporin design inspiration, built into every pore in the membrane, was then engineered for even better performance. The aquaporin design was miniaturized and scaled down to one atomic layer in thickness. The pores that make up the Agua Via membranes operate with flow rates calculated as 1,000 times more efficient than the natural aquaporin structure.
By using a biomimetic approach and pharmaceutical-style organic chemistry for the first time to control the design of a material, we offer the most precision and control possible in determining what these membranes reject and what enters the product water. It is also the first time that this level of control is offered in designing strategies and building surface structures to achieve non-fouling/non-scaling against many different feedstocks. These membranes are designed to be highly tunable to a huge range of feedstocks, to varying operating conditions, and to different product water definitions. The pores and the protective layer over them are completely controllable and modifiable to an extraordinary extent: engineering control at the atomic scale. There are millions of possible pore designs reflecting different water-handling characteristics such as pore topology, complete control over charge and charge placement, hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity and any other chemical property. In addition, there are millions of possible specialized chemistry constructs that can be added to the surface of the membrane of enhance non-fouling/non-scaling with your particular feedstock.
TECHNOLOGY
· “Most Atomically Precise Material Ever Built”
· Biomimicry
· Water/Energy
· Full Spectrum Filtration
· Small Footprint – Distributed Systems
· Engineers & Biologists: New Horizons
Water/Energy
(Max: place this pullout quote someplace)
By creating a one-atomic-layer-thick nanomembrane, Covalent technology moves to the lowest filtration energy possible under the laws of physics, and transforms the relationship. By combining low energy with tremendous specificity in filtration, the membranes achieve the long-sought goal of separation science. US Department of Energy review.
The US Environmental Protection Agency first called the intimate tie between the provision of water and the production of energy “the Water/Energy Nexus.” Then, the name evolved to “the Water/Energy/Food Nexus.” Energy and agriculture are the two largest users of water. Without water, energy and food supplies fail.
There is also another, deeper water/energy nexus that underlies the provision of water: the energy required to separate small contaminants from water. The contaminants of concern in the 1800s and early 1900s were bacteria and viruses – larger and easily removed at low energy. The contaminants of concern today are small, both naturally-occurring and resulting from industry, agriculture, or the contaminants from daily living. The smaller the contaminant, the more energy needed to remove it. As water shortages drive increasing use of desalination, the removal of salt – a very small contaminant – will drive global energy use.
The decades-long goal of membrane researchers has been to find a way to break this iron grip of the rising energy requirement when removing small contaminants: achieving low energy and high specificity separation. This is Agua Via’s focus.
The Agua Via energy savings work by making sure that all the elements of the system are designed to operate at the lowest energy possible under the laws of nature while meeting all the operational constraints of the aqueous environment. Gravity – the weight of the water alone – provides the driving force for Purification. For Desalination, a Forward Osmosis system increases the yield.
Two major energy-saving components in the Agua Via system:
· the 1-atomic layer thick membrane. At 0.5nm, the 1-atomic layer thick membrane is as thin as possible under the laws of nature – thinner than carbon nanotubes. Physics calculations indicate that the energy expenditure for a water molecule to enter and pass through the membrane is near zero.
· the aquaporin-inspired design for the pores. Each pore is a modification of the natural aquaporin structure, the water superhighway in the membranes of cells. These modifications allow the pores to transport water at a flux rate 1,000 times that of the natural aquaporin.
Building with atomic precision gives the opportunity to add in many other energy-saving tricks from Nature in addition to the aquaporin-inspired design. One example is to encourage “water ordering.” Left to their own devices, water molecules going through a membrane’s pore act like a crowd of people jostling and bumping into each other as they try to go through a gate to leave a football stadium. With water ordering, the water molecules line up neatly and speed their own passage through the pore by traveling quickly in an orderly line rather than losing speed and energy to jostling.
We hope that the ability of these membranes to clean virtually any feedstock to high purity will contribute to another major energy savings: the energy of moving water. Moving water is a major consumer of energy. In California, 19% of all electricity goes to moving water. Globally, commercial energy consumed for delivering water is more than 26 Quads, 7% of total world consumption.
http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/world-water-6.htm
By considering the use of distributed systems for purifying water or recycling water, the possibility exists for even greater energy savings through avoiding moving large volumes of water into and out of centralized plants.
Physicists characterize “energy” as the ability to do “work.” Instead, we want to provide better quality water without all the work or the energy expenditure.
. TECHNOLOGY
· “Most Atomically Precise Material Ever Built”
· Biomimicry
· Water/Energy
· Full Spectrum Filtration
· Small Footprint – Distributed Systems
· Engineers & Biologists: New Horizons
Introducing Full Spectrum Filtration
(WE NEED A MODIFICATION OF THIS GRAPH)
Agua Via uses a different paradigm from standard water treatment technologies. Instead of asking, “What contaminants need to be removed from the water,” the technology is based on providing the desired product water and eliminating everything not included in the specification. This biomimetic principle mimics the way the kidney functions. The kidney has a simple rule: keep what is vital to life and throw out everything else. What is most desirable in potable water, for example, is to completely throw out the arsenic, the pharmaceuticals, the pesticides, bacteria, viruses, etc. and keep only the salts and select minerals vital to life.
Following the kidney’s paradigm, the pores that form our membranes produce what is desired in the product water and throw out everything else. Although the number of potential contaminants numbers in the hundreds of thousands, the number of desired product water definitions and desirable solutes is small. The pores in a particular membrane are chosen to provide the desired product water. This takes the complexity of the 500,000 or so potential contaminants in water, and turns it into a simple and solvable problem.
We call the paradigm Full Spectrum Filtration because the membrane removes the full range of contaminants from large to small in a single filtration pass. Instead, standard systems employ “stacked solutions” to deal with different contaminants. In California, for example, some venues now require three separate systems to deal with arsenic, boron and nitrates. Or, a delicate Reverse Osmosis membranes needs to have a Microfiltration membrane protect it from fouling. The Agua Via membranes’ approach is to eliminate all contaminants across the full size range and deliver only the desired product water.
Some pores are built to keep earth salts, and we call those Purification pores. Pores built to eliminate salts as well as other contaminants are called Desalination pores. But they all follow the same paradigm of delivering only the desired product water.
So the question is: what is your desired product water? Potable water? Deionized water? Semiconductor water? A special definition? Just select the right pore or pores to construct your customized membrane.
TECHNOLOGY
· “Most Atomically Precise Material Ever Built”
· Biomimicry
· Water/Energy
· Full Spectrum Filtration
· Small Footprint – Distributed Systems
· Engineers & Biologists: New Horizons
Small Footprint Enables Distributed Systems footprint
In the world of computers, a footprint is how much space a piece of hardware occupies on your desk, or how much space microcomponents occupy inside a computer and how much memory software takes up.
Smaller footprints mean smart phones with more power than big mainframe computers from back in the era of vacuum tubes.
Just as smaller footprints for computation opened a world of possibilities for chip applications in telecommunications, computation….almost all aspects of daily life….we expect smaller water footprints to unleash huge creativity in planners and engineers. Example: using today’s conventional equipment adding arsenic treatment for a 1Million gallon per day California plant requires a $4-5Million in capital cost, including a building. With Agua Via technology, 1Million gallons per day can be produced by 10 small cartridges. Even smaller cartridges support smaller volume production needs, and could enable distributed water treatment systems at the level of the individual household or at the neighborhood level.
A cartridge sits in a tank of feedstock water. Gravity - a 27” head of water – provides the pressure to drive the process. A forward osmosis unit is added to the desalination cartridges to improve yield.
Agua Via systems offer the smallest footprint in the world of water. System economics are dramatically improved, and operational constraints are lifted. This opens up a new range of design possibilities to engineers and planners. With such a small footprint, distributed systems become possible. New options open for supporting small and remote communities, or for campuses and manufacturing centers. Local water recycling and reuse becomes possible, improving water security, and saving the energy expenditure of transporting water in and wastewater out. Some of the most exciting discussions we have are with designers exploring the new options as they address problems that were previously intractable due to capital costs, energy demands or maintenance logistics.