Media & Press
Army rations rehydrated by urine
Author: Duncan Graham-Rowe
| Source: NewScientist.com
Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it.
The ration comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9999 per cent of bacteria and in addition some toxic chemicals from the water used to rehydrate it, according to the Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. This is the same organization that created the “indestructible sandwich” that will stay fresh for three years (New Scientist print edition, 10 April 2002).
The aim is to reduce the amount of water soldiers need to carry. One day’s food supply of three meals, weighs 3.5 kilograms but that can be reduced to about 0.4 kilograms with the dehydrated pouches, says spokeswoman Diane Wood. The Hydration Technologies pouch relies on osmosis to filter the water or urine. When two solutions of different concentrations are separated by a semi-permeable membrane, with gaps that allow only water molecules to pass through, the water is drawn to the more concentrated side.
Hungry soldier
The membranes are made of thin sheets of a cellulose-based plastic, with gaps between the fibersthat are just 5 angstroms across, too small for bacteria to pass through.
In the water filtration product, a hungry soldier pours dirty water into one end of a foil sachet containing two inner pouches separated by the membrane. The water seeps through the membrane into the dehydrated food on the other side. As it dissolves large molecules in the food, it creates a very high concentration solution. The osmotic pressure created then draws more water through the membrane.
Hydration Technology of Albany, Oregon, which makes the membrane, says soldiers should only use urine in an absolute emergency because the membrane is too coarse to filter out urea.”The body will not find this toxic over the short term”, says Ed Beaudry, an engineer with HTI, “but rehydrating food this way in the long term would cause kidney damage”.
Hydration Technologies’ Life-Sustaining Water Filtration Bags Deployed To Hurricane Katrina Victims
| Source: Business Wire
ALBANY, Ore. — With thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims still in need of clean drinking water, Hydration Technologies Inc. (HTI) is providing emergency water filtration bags that turn muddy, contaminated waters into clean, potable drink. Over the past 10 days, the company has deployed nearly 25,000 of its X-Pack(TM) systems to U.S. military centers responding to the Gulf Coast disaster. Used by the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and in water-deprived areas of Africa, HTI’s X-Pack provides a portable, life-sustaining source of clean drink at a time when a lack of clean water poses the biggest health threat to hurricane victims in Louisiana and Mississippi. The unit uses a revolutionary membrane process that turns all types of contaminated water into a nutrient-filled drink. Each X-Pack provides a 10-day supply of water for a person, while weighing just six percent of the equivalent amount of bottled water. No pumps or mechanisms are needed. “The beauty of the X-Pack is that it works with virtually any water, anywhere - it is a life-saving advantage when planning for and responding to natural disasters like Katrina,” said Bob Salter, president of HTI. “In times of emergency, access to clean drinking water is often one of the biggest logistical problems - and transporting bottled water is a cumbersome, costly endeavor. With the X-Pack, first-responders and victims can generate drinkable fluids until a longer-term water solution is in place.” HTI’s military products are currently available to consumers at www.hydrationtech.com. A lower-priced consumer version is slated for nationwide release in the first quarter of 2006. Like batteries, flashlights, first-aid supplies and canned foods, the X-Pack is an essential component of a home preparedness kit, providing a compact, lightweight source of hydration that is far easier to store and transport than bottled water. Retired Major General Lou Hennies, senior military advisor to HTI, noted, “As we have seen with Hurricane Katrina, natural disasters bring unanticipated challenges. Preparing to deal with these challenges is something every family should do. One of the biggest steps towards emergency preparedness is having a personal emergency hydration system such as the X-Pack available - it boosts self-sufficiency and health, and also lightens the load on emergency response teams.” X-Pack technology uses a proprietary forward-osmosis membrane to convert dirty water into pure drink without pumping, mechanical parts or purifying chemicals. Unlike other filtration techniques, HTI’s purification process requires no external pressure, which means that the system won’t clog, even in the highly turbid water conditions created by the hurricane. In addition, the system provides vital salts and sugars that help treat dysentery, diarrhea and other symptoms of dehydration. This is due to the system’s oral rehydration syrup, which creates the osmotic pressure required to drive the filtration process. This is the second time HTI’s X-Pack has been deployed in a natural disaster crisis. Earlier this year, HTI donated over 4,000 X-Pack units - worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars - in response the tsunami disaster in South Asia.
Hydration Technologies (HTI) is the world-leading forward-osmosis membrane company. With over fifteen years of research, the scientists at HTI have developed the world’s first commercially viable forward-osmosis products. This membrane has been used by NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, many branches of the U.S. military and is now available to the public. HTI is headquartered in Albany, Oregon and can be reached at (541) 917-3335. The company’s Web site is www.hydrationtech.com.
Albany firm’s water pack could help flood victims
Author: Alex Paul | Source: Gazette Times
Albany firm’s water pack could help flood victims
The owner of an Albany company whose products provided potable water for victims of Hurricane Katrina says that same technology can aid families affected by extreme drought in the Southeast.
Robert Salter, president of Hydration Technologies Inc., said the company’s X-Pack forward osmosis water filtration system will allow people to safely drink water from swimming pools, ponds or streams. The company has about $1 million in inventory that could be shipped out immediately.
But the Federal Emergency Management Agency hasn’t yet come knocking at Salter’s door, even though portions of the Southeast are experiencing their worst drought in 100 years. Some community reservoirs may soon run dry.
“Right now, cities like Atlanta are in a real pinch,” Salter said of the area where rainfall is 16 inches below normal. “We heard that some of the folks are getting some pretty sad-looking water coming out of their pipes. They got a little break in the weather, but they are in trouble. They don’t have any backup plans.”
Salter said if reservoirs run dry, people will be forced to buy bottled water “and they can’t keep going that way” when we have products that can be useful to them.
Hydration Technologies Inc.’s water filtration system is used extensively by the U.S. military, and Salter said the public can use Hydration Technologies system with complete confidence.
“Even muddy water can be used without clogging the filter,” Salter said. He added that forward osmosis is as old as nature. It is the same process tree roots use to draw water in and propel it to the top leaves.
After Hurricane Katrina, HTI products allowed soldiers to drink contaminated flood waters from the streets of New Orleans.
In March, a fire heavily damaged the Hydration Technologies Inc. plant at 1517 Industrial Ave. S.W. Damage was estimated at $750,000. At the time, the company employed about 55 people. Since then, HTI has continued production but with just 20 employees.
How the HTI X-Packs work
The user pours dirty water into one section of the X-Pack and sports syrup into a second section. The water is filtered over time by a forward osmosis membrane as it is drawn into the X-Pack’s inner chamber. It can be reused multiple times. The filter produces 1 liter of water every four hours and can be used for up to 10 days.
Albany company puts safe water in the bag
Author: Robert Goldfield | Source: Portland Business Journal
EXCLUSIVE REPORTS
Albany company puts safe water in the bag
Robert Goldfield
Business Journal Staff Writer
“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
Like Coleridge’s ancient, thirsty mariner, many people know the despair that comes from the lack of drinking water. In fact, some 1.2 billion people worldwide regularly go without safe water, according to the World Health Organization. And where populations have access to safe water, the supply can be threatened by natural disasters, or, of more recent concern to Americans, terrorism and sabotage.
Enter Hydration Technologies, a start-up in Albany that has developed a practical, inexpensive means of removing bacteria, viruses and other contaminants from fresh water to yield a safe liquid for drinking. During the past two years Hydration has engineered two inexpensive products that employ the principle of osmosis to send contaminated water flowing through filtering membranes. One product is a 2-liter bag called the Hydropack and designed for one-time use. Once placed in a contaminated body of water, the bag fills with filtered fluid in four to six hours. The other product is a cartridge, called Hydroflow, that produces a continuous flow of filtered liquid at the rate of 1 liter per hour.
When disaster wipes out or contaminates a major water supply, “it’s impossible logistically to haul enough water in,” said Hydration’s president, Bob Salter. “You can’t get enough water in and you can’t get the people out [by evacuation] either. So you need something to use on the dirty water: We have the low-cost solution.”
Salter boldly speaks of exceeding $100 million in sales in five years or sooner: “The problem is production capability, not sales capability.”
Research and development began a couple of years ago, when the U.S. Department of Defense approached predecessor company Osmotek and asked it to create a product, based on osmosis, that soldiers could easily carry to provide themselves with safe drinking water.
Osmotek delivered the goods, and spun off the technology and the products to Hydration Technologies, a new company with the same ownership of about 20 individuals, mostly Oregonians. Hydration Technologies views the products as useful for several markets: civil or homeland defense, disaster relief, military use and outdoor recreation.
Thanks to some equity investment, Hydration was able to fund construction of a $1.5 million, 15,000-square-foot production plant which opened in October in Albany. The expandable plant is now producing small amounts of product that are being sold to military units, Salter said. Current capacity is 2,500 bags a day, or 200 cartridges a day.
A near-term goal is obtaining $10 million to $12 million in an initial round of venture capital to fund increased capacity and development of marketing and sales functions.
The light-weight bags and cartridges don’t require energy, fuel or hydraulic pressure, and they have no moving parts. Hydration Technologies instead creates an osmotic gradient by placing a solute—nutrients that include salts and sugars (Gatorade powder works nicely)—in the bag or cartridge. Fresh water naturally and passively flows through the porous membrane of the bag or cartridge to mix with the solute. The membrane allows water through at a reasonably fast rate, while blocking microbial pathogens and many other contaminants, such as heavy metals.
Hydration Technologies elegantly solved the question of how to cheaply purify water by rewording the question, said Jim Hicks, a scientist with Tigard startup Virogenomics who has reviewed Hydration Technologies’ business plan. They aren’t producing pure water—they are producing Gatorade or similar nutritional drinks, which is just as good as producing drinkable water.
Better than drinkable water, Salter said. The resulting drink contains electrolytes and nutrients that allow a body to recover from dysentery and other diseases linked to loss of fluids through diarrhea.
Salter expects Hydration Technologies to obtain some patents, but not necessarily for the membrane technology. He said the company will be better off keeping the membrane recipe secret rather than obtaining patents for it. Duplicating or reverse engineering the membrane, which is made out of cellulose and other, undisclosed ingredients, would be a daunting challenge.
The filtration bags yield safe liquid at a cost of $3 a liter—admittedly too expensive for any large-scale deployment among Third World populations, Salter said. Amortizing the cost of the continuously operating cartridge, however, over the course of 100 days, yields a cost of between 2 and 3 cents per liter, depending on which of the three cartridge sizes are used.
U.S. and foreign militaries, disaster relief organizations such as the American Red Cross and government agencies such as municipal water departments or state health departments are likely markets for the short-term. Consumers, however, may form a long-term market, both for use in hiking and camping and as part of a household emergency kit should earthquakes or other disasters result in contamination of water supplies.
Hydration Technologies has made repeated sales to some small military units, but obtaining a large order means navigating a complicated procurement maze.
“I love the products … I’ve had great success with them,” said Maj. Douglas Hodge, chief of medical operations of the U.S. Air Force’s 820th Security Forces Group.
Hodge, who has ordered thousands of the bags for field testing in the past year, said he’d like to see the Hydropack carried as standard equipment by the soldier in the field. Military officials in charge of large-scale ordering, however, will likely subject the products to testing under extreme conditions for some time to come, he said.
All this effort to remove contaminants from fresh water sounds promising, but does nothing to aid that ancient mariner. That could change, however, as Hydration Technologies is researching a next-generation product that would make seawater potable.
Seattle Magazine introduces HTI technology
Author: Seattle Magazine
| Source: Seattle Magazine
Have Seattle’s terrorist drills got you stockpiling drinking water? Fear not - now you can make a sports drink from a mud puddle. Oregon-based Hydration Technologies Inc. has developed HydroPack, a filtered pouch that absorbs thick mucky water and turns it into a clean nutrient-rich drink, without chemicals, moving parts or high-pressure pumps. According to HTI, HydroPack’s tight-membrane filter absorbs up to 2 liters of clean water from contaminated sources, eliminating up to 99.9% of all viruses, bacteria, parasites, pesticides and so on. So far the product, $12.99, has piqued the interest of the US military, outdoor enthusiasts and disaster-relief workers alike. Also available in backpack system, $299, and family system, $219.
Water - The New Oil: Nanotech
The problem—a lack of safe, clean, and affordable water—is enormous. The solution could be quite small.
Traditional remedies, such as filters, desalination, and water recovery systems, are limited in scope because they cost too much, are inefficient, require lots of maintenance, or use too much energy.
Enter nanotechnology. The science of the small has the potential to tilt the economic balance of many existing water-related technologies in favor of large-scale use, says Tim Harper, CEO of London-based Cientifica, a consultancy specializing in nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology is not likely to provide much in the way of radical new technologies for desalination, purification, or wastewater recovery.
But adapting existing nanotechnologies for use in the water industry could provide huge benefits, argues Mr. Harper, author of a soon-to-be published white paper called “NanoWater.”
Scientists have researched the possible water applications of nanotechnology for years.Now, the technologies need to be turned into actual products, says Mr. Harper. “While we in the developed world sit around and talk about the pros and cons, there are people in the developing world who are dying of waterborne diseases,” he says.
The technology and the business case are there, says Mr. Harper; they just need capital to get going. Mr. Harper is behind a global organization called Nanowater.org, which acts as a bridge between water remediation companies and nanotech firms. “If we could get funding now, we could have initial results in six months, field trials in 12 months to 18 months, and be saving lives within two to three years,” he says. “Nanotechnology is developed, but not for water.”
“Nanotechnology is developed, but not for water.”Nanoscale “needles” that puncture bacteria, already being used in footwear to fight odors, could potentially be applied to water-treatment applications, says Mr. Harper. So could nanoparticulate silver, which is currently used in wound dressings to fight infection.
Then there are nanofibers, which are already used in many industrial applications. NASA is evaluating ceramic nanofibers for water purification in space because of their ability to increase throughput and reduce clogging compared to traditional filtration methods.
Here on Earth, though, nanotechnology is just starting to show what it can do for water.
The use of nanofiltration, which is common in most industrial filtration processes, is the first application to trickle into the water sector. KX Industries, a privately held company in Orange, Connecticut, that produces consumer and light-industrial water filters, is producing nanoscale filters that will screen out items as small as bacteria and viruses for the specific purpose of eradicating waterborne disease, one of the main killers in developing countries. Switzerland’s Membratec and Germany’s BASF are also applying nanotechnologies to filtration.
But in other segments of water treatment, nanotechnology’s potential has yet to be truly leveraged. Take the case of desalination, an area where nanotechnology could cut costs, save energy, and improve the lifetime and efficiency of membranes. Today, seawater is most often turned into drinking water through a 40-year-old process called reverse osmosis, which is slow, expensive, and energy intensive.
One way of improving the process is using a modern-day version of forward osmosis.
Hydration Technologies of Albany, Oregon, has developed a semi-permeable membrane that acts as a molecular sieve, allowing water to pass through while rejecting impurities such as viruses, anthrax spores, e.Coli bacteria, heavy metals, and other health threats. Today the technology is used to clean up industrial water and in the production of some food concentrates.
Another potential application is sensitive-sensor technology, which involves the use of carbon nanotubes, nanowires, and micro- and nanoscale cantilevers to detect contaminants. These sensors could effectively and affordably protect against biowarfare through contamination of water supplies. Nanosight in the United Kingdomhas a system that can detect waterborne nanoparticles and viruses in real time.
Nanotech can also help tackle decontamination of groundwater from industrial and natural sources. Taiwan Surfactant is developing a surface-modified gel designed to selectively absorb heavy metal ions from wastewater using a novel nanopore structure.
Still, most nanotech companies aren’t yet exploring water treatment applications, and research labs suffer from lack of funding, says Mr. Harper. In 2003 Cientifica, thePeresCenter for Peace, and the Israeli Nanotechnology Trust hatched a plan to use an Israeli-based nanotechnology water initiative to provide access to clean, affordable water for domestic, industrial, and agricultural use. At the same time, the project is attempting to repair the effects of large-scale desalination and excessive withdrawal of water from aquifers. Israel plans to generate half of its urban water supplies through desalination by 2008. If nanotechnology can make the process cheaper and more efficient, it could have a large impact.
Field trials are important for these technologies, says Mr. Harper, because like any other business sector, the water industry is likely to adopt nanotechnologies once it sees that costs can be reduced through lower maintenance and better efficiency.
If nanotech really can bring down the cost of water treatment or desalination, clean water could be within the grasp of a larger portion of the world. And that will be no small feat.
ABC Segment on HTI Filters
Author: Dr. Dean Edell | Source: ABC 7 News
