Industrial biotechnology firm Microvi and Sunny Slope Water have unveiled a nitrate removal technology to bring real solutions to the water industry.
The technology, dubbed Denitrovi, will offer over 200 million gallons of potable water annually for Sunny Slope’s 30,000 households.
Denitrovi is claimed to be a natural nitrate-removal process with no negative impact on the environment.
It offers benefits such as up to 50% savings compared to other nitrate removal processes, eliminating secondary waste stream found in conventional systems and it is easy to operate, offering long-term performance.
The California Division of Drinking Water has issued a conditional acceptance of the Denitrovi technology for Sunny Slope, which also received the NSF/ANSI 61 consumer safety certification.
Microvi and Sunny Slope have partnered to bring this process that was first implemented in remote places in Australia, to offer solutions for water crisis in Southern California, in the US.
California State law has tough standards as far as drinking water is concerned and groundwater is one of the sources of drinking water. In order to meet the state’s standards, several companies including Sunny Slope are in the search of new ways in treating the high nitrate content in the ground water.
As per the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) estimates, in California about 10% of groundwater sources are contaminated with nitrates.
The newly developed technology, Denitrovi converts nitrates in water into nitrogen gas through a natural process which bubbles away from the water into the atmosphere and results in no byproducts or sludge.
Denitrovi’s technology is based on Microvi’s biomimetic water technology, which uses a natural process for nitrate removal.
Microvi CEO and chief technology officer Fatemeh Shirazi said: "With a small footprint, virtually no waste stream and extreme energy efficiency, Denitrovi offers significant cost and operational advantages over any existing technology for nitrate removal."
Sunny Slope Water Company general manager Ken Tcheng said "Microvi's nature-based approach to water purification is revolutionary.
"We found that Microvi's Denitrovi technology not only provided the water-quality regulators demand and our customers expect, but also solves costly waste-disposal problem of a conventional system."
Image: Microvi’s Denitrovi technology using natural process remove nitrates from water. Photo: Courtesy of Microvi.