Happy New Year, nearly! For those new to this newsletter or if you’d simply like a refresher, see our first update from last month.

I just ran our P&L for 2024 today. After two years of running a “profit,” we are in the red for the first time, to the tune of -$130k. This very nearly matches the investment we brought in during 2024, so thank you all for helping to plug that hole.

We have an additional $100k committed in 2025. Beyond that, I am hopeful to bring in at least another $100k from an investor who visited us at Artisans Asylum this morning.

Between the flexible funds from our SAFE investments and our RCA with Gradiant, we should be able to get through the next year of piloting and be ready to sell commercial systems or raise further funds.

What we’ve been up to
Towards the end of November, Christine and I flew out to College Station where she was able to run our batch RO prototype (el Titan) for the first time. We got to know some more failure modes of the bladder. We also tried retrofitting el Titan to run off of slow-opening motorized valves (we have previously used solenoids) but ran into some electrical challenges (i.e. fried chips).

Just as we were flying back, we received word that a magazine article featuring our Socorro (TX) pilot was published. The journalist, Lela, had flown to visit the site along with the BGNDRF in Alomogordo and Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant in El Paso. It was a nice mention and we’ve already seen some follow-ups as a result.

In early December, Christine and I flew to Abu Dhabi for the biennial Desalination World Congress. I pitched at the XPRIZE Water Scarcity event and Christine gave our talk on high-pressure batch desalting during the technical sessions. As usual, we saw some familiar faces and made new connections as well.

Things have slowed down, but not halted, towards the end of the year. We have been hard at work on designing these pilot desalination systems and selecting components. Orders have already done out for long lead-time components: pumps and pressure vessels. I stopped by College Station again on a road trip and finally got those motorized valves working. el Titan has been crated up and is shipping (back) up to Boston today.

Follow-ups from last month

-We’ll build it ourselves: The folks at Innocorps have officially ghosted us — so late last month we decided to design and build these batch RO skids ourselves. We have secured a suitable spot in Chelsea for assembly and testing and are preparing to move our equipment and tools there just after the new year. In the end, it should be cheaper to build these units in-house and this will give our team some good experience. We had a close collaboration with Innocorps over the span of nearly two years, so we are still baffled by their disappearance.

-Signed RCA with Gradiant! At the World Congress we met with Steven Lam (Gradiant) and Lei Liu (PUB). Part of the delay in getting a research collaboration agreement (RCA) signed with Gradiant was supposedly due to a delay in release of funds from PUB, so it was good to sit down with Lei and tell her more about the batch process and the prep work needed for a successful demo. PUB wants the full-scale SWRO demonstration up and running by October of 2025! We also visited Gradiant’s innovation lab in Abu Dhabi and spent some time with Prakash Govindan (COO) and Siva Kumar (Head of Technology). The RCA was signed on December 27th and we anticipate payments arriving in January.

2024 in review

Growing team - we began 2024 with only two employees, myself and Haig. We are looking to start 2025 with five folks on the team along with several contractors. Jenny (Research Scientist) joined us in February and Christine (CTO) joined in the fall. I am about to send an offer letter to our new engineer, Quinton, who will help us out with assembling and testing these pilot systems.

Flagship pilots - our BoR pilot was originally supposed to take place on a small farm in Lockhart, TX. In January, we secured a $300k cost-share from Plum Creek Conservation District to dig the well. However, that site fell through. Fortunately, Haig had just gotten in touch with Marty and Ralph Loya of Growing with Sara Farm. Since then, we’ve put together a compelling pilot: solar-powered desalination to grow wine-grapes on a currently empty plot of land in Texas. We’ve also secured a big scale-up demonstration (over 100x) and our first seawater funded by Singapore’s National Water Agency. Together, these two pilots will showcase the versatility of the batch RO technology.

What’s in store for 2025
The first half of 2025 is pretty set for us. We will be fully engaged in moving to our new site in Chelsea and putting together five separate desalination systems from January-March or so. Much of the spring will then be spent commissioning these pilots and monitoring their operations.

The second half of 2025 is a bit less certain. We will certainly be gearing up for the full-scale seawater demonstration with Gradiant and PUB, which is scheduled to commission by October. Besides that, we’ll have to find more projects to keep us occupied!

-quantum