For those new to the newsletter: Harmony’s advanced desalting process achieves superior performance: minimal energy by varying pressure and fouling-resistance with regular rinsing. For more, see our newsletter archive.

Christine and I are in Madrid now for the XPRIZE Semifinalists Summit coinciding with the Global Water Summit. We are one of only two teams (the other is Active Membranes) who advanced to the semifinals in both Track A (system-level innovation) and Track B (novel materials and methods). This was not a low bar. Only 17/50 teams advanced to Track B semifinalists; XPRIZE could have advanced 30 teams.

Tomorrow morning we will announce our industry consortium for the Semifinals testing:

Each of these desalination equipment suppliers will provide their products gratis or at-cost.

A quick run-down:

• Protec-Arisawa will provide pressure vessels rated for ultra-high pressure operation (up to 120 bar)

• Danfoss will provide energy-efficient pumps

• Dupont will provide ultra-high pressure membrane elements for high-recovery seawater RO

• Aqua Membranes will provide more energy-efficient membrane elements for standard recovery seawater RO.

• Testing will take place at the Dhekelia Desalination Plant in Cyprus.

The announcement will go out on PRweb, our website, and on LinkedIn. Please help share the word. XPRIZE will be ramping up their publicity efforts and this is driving our fundraising efforts.

What else we’ve been up to:

• IFAT Munich: Christine observes that IFAT was originally a wastewater recycling trade fair. She sees the membrane treatment, water technologies, and utility companies with much greater presence compared to two years ago.

• CaribDA: Two years ago, we presented to the Caribbean Desalination Association about the advantages of our batch process but with no seawater demonstrations. I flew to Grand Cayman this year and shared our progress. I got some leads on potential pilots/sales later this year in Belize and Bermuda. I got to know the Seven Seas folks (a potential customer) better and also toured some very nice desalination plants designed and built by Consolidated Water.

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What we’re up to over the next month:

Construction on Mesquite is ongoing and we anticipate installing in El Paso during the second half of June. That will then give us time to focus on building Blackbird_, our XPRIZE semifinals test skid.

We will also fly out to Singapore over the next month to get our 1,000 tons/day seawater demonstration up and running. We’ve done lots of work towards that commissioning.

As always, let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or connections.

-quantum