I’m writing to you above the Pacific Ocean on my way to Singapore. On Monday I will visit Searay, our 1,000 tons/day seawater demonstration plant, with Sean McCagh. We’ll also be attending Singapore International Water Week.

We brought on Sean to assist with the project management for Blackbird. Sean brings excellent experience with large-scale dynamic RO plants. He was also a key contributor to AMTA’s new guideline on pressure vessel reliability, highly relevant for our dynamic RO technology (increased fatigue). We extended an offer for him to join Harmony (a six month contract with bonuses), but he accepted a permanent position with Arup, a leading engineering firm. He will continue to work with us on Blackbird and been a valuable addition to the team.

Key developments and asks

1. Delinquent XPRIZE milestone: XPRIZE has informed us they do not have a timeline for disbursing our $250k semifinals milestone payment, despite previously telling us it would arrive by the end of May. We have less than six months to design, build, and operate Blackbird for four weeks in time for the December 18 deadline. We have already wired $20k to TECVAL for valves.

   We are dipping into our cash reserves. We could use assistance with cash infusion, loan, or accounts receivable financing to the order of $125k by August 1. We will soon need to spend additional funds on the skid design, pipe welding, assembly labor. We have a very real chance to advance to the XPRIZE finals (top five teams) for the chance to win the $40M grand prize in 2028. 2. Licensing negotiations with MIT: MIT has agreed to initiate negotiations for a commercial license for the batch RO IP. We are looking for an experienced advisor to assist with these negotiations.

   • In May we received news that our claims on US 18/556,892 are pending, a positive sign for our sole piece of international IP.
   • We have written interest from Gradiant and Acwa to license this IP for use in large seawater RO plants, primarily outside of the USA.
   • Taprogge, a German company providing equipment to power plants, would like clarity on licensing costs. Christine visited their offices for a full day earlier this month and they plan to visit our shop in Boston in July.
   • Following a successful negotiation of licensing terms, we anticipate needing to pay the MIT TLO upwards of $20k for prosecution and licensing fees. 3. Team developments: Since January 2025, the core of our build team in Boston has been three: Jenny, Martin, and Quinton. Quinton is stepping down due to health reasons, and this has left quite a hole in our build team. We are open to any introductions to an experience desalting engineer.

   We’ve got a lot of new folks at our site in Chelsea, with five summer interns coming onboard for the summer. They are integrating to the team nicely, although not without some challenges. It feels like we are taking five steps forward and one step back. Moving ahead, we are focused on improving our project organization, process documentation, and formal training.

   I have started to engaging in regular (bi-weekly) one-on-ones with each of the team. This has been long overdue and a routine I plan to continue moving forward.

July plans

• We will travel to Socorro, TX to commission Mesquite
• Christine and Martin will travel to San Antonio for the International Congress on Membranes. We are a sponsor this year, a worthwhile investment ($500) for this combined congress which last occurred in 2017.
• We’ll be moving full speed ahead on the build of Blackbird, our XPRIZE semifinals skid. We are targeting shipment to Cyprus in late August so that we can perform our four week test in November.

Detailed updates on our pilot projects follow below. As always, let me know if you have any questions, connections, or suggestions.

-quantum

Gemini - treating produced water in California

• Bollfilter performed their first chemical cleaning on the UF this week. This seems to have caused problems downstream, with our RO membranes subsequently being exposed to very low pH (2.5) and very high pH (12.5). The membranes now appear to be permanently damaged with rejection rates declining to ~80%.

  • In retrospect, we should have worked through the proposed cleaning procedure with Bollfilter in much more detail and clearly communicated the acceptable parameters for our RO feed.
  • Moving forward, we will issue regular (monthly) reports to our pilot site hosts. So far, we have been reaching out with questions and issues and this is not the right way to build trust with our customers.
  • We have connected Bollfilter with Encotech, a company which has developed a plasma-based electrocoagulation technology. This process could sit upstream of the UF and eliminate their need for chemical cleanings.
  • We are asking Bollfilter to extend the pilot test beyond its August deadline. The key limitation is our BoR budget running out. We need $5.5k each month to rent the water chiller which is needed for operating at this site.

Mesquite - solar-powered groundwater desalination

• The RO stage is assembled and we successfully performed our first batch cycle (with freshwater) on Friday.

  

• The NF stage is now being assembled. We will run a scaling test (part of our NAWI work) as our FAT on this stage.
• We are still on track for on-site installation in Socorro, TX in early July.

Searay - 1,000 tons/day low-energy seawater RO

• Gradiant and PUB were hoping we would have operational data to report by Singapore International Water Week. That deadline has passed. The project has been extended through December 31, 2026 and we are tasked with collecting three months of data by then.

• High-pressure hydrotests are in progress with testing of the sequence to follow. We still have a bit of work to do here.

  

• We are now ready to go with the 16”-6M bladders and all other associated components. We are glad now not to be the limiting factor in plant start-up.

Blackbird - XPRIZE semifinals: UHPRO for 2/3 recovery of seawater

• TECVAL, our provider of valves, has joined on as a team partner.
• We signed the teaming agreement with Aqua Membranes and connected them with DuPont to supply flat-sheet membranes.
• We are offering bonuses to the build crew if we advance to the finals or win a semifinals moonshot prize.
• The 3d CAD layout is being finalized so we can hand-off spool drawings to a welding shop for quotation and assembly in July. We’ve got two shops in mind but we are looking for experienced super duplex pipe welders.
• We are preparing to weld the frame in-house and then will ship it up to a MA shop for powder-coating in July.