Desalination has featured in the news this March with plants in the Middle East unfortunately being directly hit, indirectly damaged, and threatened. Some of the folks we work with live in the region and our thoughts are with them.

For us, this certainly pushes back our planned piloting with the Saudi Water Authority in Jubail. Baby Searay, our first SWRO pilot, shipped out from Singapore on March 3rd and instead of proceeding to Dammam, Saudi Arabia - has been re-routed to Nhava Sheva, India.

We have not yet received a piloting agreement from Acwa. Presumably their operations are also affected by the war.

Gemini: the twins are treating produced water

We spent the first week of March in Oxnard, California getting our BoR pilot up-and-running. It took a bit longer than expected but after two and a half weeks we had all left site and returned to Massachusetts.

This was our team’s first time working on a system with level control on multiple tanks. Glad to have that figured out. We are now sorting through some outstanding issues, unrelated to the batch process itself.

Here are some performance specs from the first several weeks of testing:

- The two RO systems collectively treat 62 barrels of produced water per day.
- We are currently operating at a 50% water recovery rate.
- We are concentrating the reject to 98 mS/cm, roughly double the incoming feed.

We are currently producing permeate with a conductivity between 150-500 uS/cm. This water could go to the neighboring farms for equipment washdown or dust suppression.

We are scheduled to test for another five months. A commercial deployment at this site would process 5x more water in a similar footprint. This oil producer has several sites across southern California where wastewater disposal limits their production capacity.

Other March news

- We submitted our test report for Track B of XPRIZE Water Scarcity. Track B is focused on novel materials & methods. We tested a double-spacer for improved water production in ultra-high pressure RO. We weren’t able to pull of all the testing we set out but will continue this work. See our video submission.

- We are engaged in discussions with two German industrial companies thanks to Christine’s established relationships and presence there.

- We extended offers to three interns for the summer. Two have already accepted. Thanks to Quinton for doing a great job leading the hiring process.

- We have started working with an industry veteran, Benoit Tranape, to help dial in our project management and procurement processes. So far the team is finding this collaboration quite helpful.

- We have secured two partners for our XPRIZE Track A consortium team. One is a pump company and the other a membrane company. We are in touch with several others and plan to announce the full team in late May.

What we’re up to in April

- We have two commercial inquiries which we have been working to close out.
- We anticipate traveling to Singapore as Big Searay, a 1,000 m3/day low-energy seawater demonstration is commissioned.
- We are full speed ahead on assembling Mesquite, our solar-powered groundwater desalter.

- We will continue to operate Gemini remotely and continue planning for our upcoming pilots: Yucca and Blackbird.

How can you help?

- Local welding shop: So far, we have gone to China for welded frames. We are exploring having a local shop weld and powder-coat equipment frames. Any suggestions?
- Shipping of modified containers: An upcoming project will require us to potentially ship a modified shipping container to Europe. Any experiences recertifying containers for shipment by sea?

As always, please reach out if you have any questions, connections, or suggestions.

-quantum

This month’s subject line is the title of a grade-school book which has stuck in my memory.