Treating It
In spring 2007, the Department of Homeland Security issued an alert about a new terrorist threat: chlorine truck bombs. At least five had been exploded in Iraq, killing scores of people and injuring many more who inhaled toxic fumes. The insurgents who carried out the attacks probably stole the chlorine from water-purification and sewage treatment plants, which use the chemical for disinfection. Authorities here worried about the 2,000 or so U.S. water systems that store Environmental Protection Agency -- regulated quantities of chlorine. More than 100 treatment facilities are in densely populated areas, where an explosion could expose more than a million people to toxic gases.
Some say the threat was overrated. But the underlying facts were real -- and for at least one company, the heightened awareness was good news. MIOX, an Albuquerque-based outfit founded in 1994, makes compact generators that allow water treatment facilities to produce a liquid chlorine -- based solution on-site, using only water, salt, and electricity, eliminating the need to store or transport hazardous chemicals. (The company also makes a hand-held battery-powered version of its generator, used by backpackers and military personnel.)
The gold standard of disinfection for more than 100 years, chlorine kills bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens, and it has played a key role in eliminating diseases such as typhoid and cholera in the U.S. And chlorine's benefits in water are twofold: it not only disinfects but also remains at a residual level in the water, preventing reinfection by viruses or bacteria during transport, storage, and distribution. For that reason, the EPA and state regulators require that all municipal drinking water contain a measurable chlorine residual. So even as new disinfection methods, such as using ozone and UV light, gain popularity, they continue to be used with some kind of chlorine-based treatment.
Safety and security alone might have been sufficient drivers to propel MIOX's technology. But since joining the company as CEO in 2005, Carlos Perea, a veteran of the semiconductor and telecom industries, has been highlighting other benefits. Water quality is one: Using freshly generated chemicals helps avoid the development of undesirable chlorine byproducts. And because the MIOX generator can produce a "mixed oxidant" (hence the company name) that disinfects water with less chlorine, treated water has less chemical taste and odor, and there is less buildup of biofilm and algae in the treatment system. But cost and carbon savings are an even bigger selling point. "It doesn't make sense to transport chemicals when you can generate them yourself at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the impact," Perea says.
In August, the 77-employee company received $19 million in Series C funding from several venture capital firms, including DCM, Sierra Ventures, and Flywheel Ventures. Water utilities in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and other cities now use MIOX generators. The U.S. Navy also uses them on some of its ships. For some large beverage makers, MIOX equipment is the first disinfection step in their bottling processes. Other industrial and commercial customers are looking to use the system as a component in self-contained water recycling systems to disinfect water before it is reused for, say, landscape maintenance or cooling. "Moving water is so power intensive, such a huge energy user, that it doesn't make sense to continue to treat it one place, pump it, live with losses and degradation, and move it someplace else to dispose of it," says Perea. "If you have a swimming pool, you don't fill it up and dump it out every time that you use it; it just wouldn't make sense."
In a developing country like India, the ability to treat one's own water at home can be a matter of life and death. According to a 2002 World Health Organization study, 782,000 deaths, or 7.5 percent of all deaths in India that year, were caused by diseases related to unclean water. Even in places where municipal tap water is available, quality is unreliable, and the water runs for only part of the day. Much of the population gets drinking water from vendors who sell it from tanker trucks.
Those with limited means often purify water by boiling it or mixing it with iodine tablets. Those who can afford it use home water-purification systems. One of the companies capitalizing on demand for such systems is Eureka Forbes, India's largest manufacturer of home water-purification systems. And since 2006, a Bothell, Washington, company, HaloSource, has played an integral part in Eureka Forbes's effort to make such systems much more affordable.
