Axine Water Technologies, developers of a chemical-free solution for treating toxic organic pollutants in industrial wastewater, have successfully completed six months of performance testing and validation of customer wastewaters using a 10 times scale-up of its proprietary electrolytic oxidation cell.
Working with oil and gas, refining and chemical markets, Axine verified its technology on real-world wastewaters containing aromatic acids, phenols, BTEX, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia ranging in concentration from 900 to 9,000 mg/L of chemical oxygen demand. Organics were oxidized to CO2, water and nitrogen gas by hydroxyl radicals generated on the surface of Axine’s proprietary catalyst. The company says the scaled-up cell achieved high-efficacy treatment at low-cost and low-energy consumption — without the need for chemicals.
Axine CEO Jonathan Rhone says the testing confirms that his company’s approach to wastewater treatment has the potential to reduce chronic production bottlenecks and the high cost associated with conventional chemical oxidation or biological system approaches. Rhone says the company will continue to work to bring the technology to market.
Wastewater performance and durability testing will continue at Axine’s facility in Vancouver, Canada. The next phase in the company’s commercialization program is to complete scale-up and integrate cells into commercial pilot systems for on-site testing at customer facilities.
Water security and re-use is a strategic issue for water-intensive industries resulting in increased demand for new technologies and business models. Global Water Intelligence forecasts that $120 billion will be spent on industrial water and wastewater systems between 2013 and 2018 with each heavy industry increasing their spending over 35 percent on average, according to Axine.
Analysis by Frost & Sullivan published last week said rapid industrialization and urbanization coupled with more stringent legislation is requiring more extensive water reuse, a need that will push revenues in the wastewater disinfection systems market from $1.94 billion in 2012 up to $2.96 billion in 2019.
