Water: The Oil of the Future, How Safe is Yours?

November 17, 2007 (PRLEAP.COM) Technology News
Youngstown, OH November 14, 2007 - The World Health Organization and UNICEF state that 1.1 billion people around the globe lack safe drinking water. Even in the United States, which has one of the best supplies of drinking water in the world, threats to drinking water quality still exist.

From boil water advisories, to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, to possible terrorism attempts, water quality around the globe is susceptible.

There are many methods that exist today to help provide a better quality of water. There are also new technologies that take existing methods and improve upon them to provide better efficiency, lower energy consumption and lower cost.

One such method is a patented technology, which uses ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) to eradicate pathogens in water.

Next Energy Wave, Inc., an Ohio startup company, has recently received a patent on an UV LED product designed for “point-of-use” (POU) safe drinking water. Damien Lieggi, company President, states: “One of the best features about the technology is its diversity. It was invented to help solve water quality issues, yet can be incorporated across a broad spectrum of applications. The POU system is just the tip of the iceberg for this technology. It can be incorporated into industries and fields such as food, beverage, health/medical, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. Anywhere there is a need for water disenfection.”

The product, named the H2Oelement, designed as a self-powered technology, utilizes the energy of the flowing water, which it is purifying. It can also be used with any means for electrically interconnecting said ultraviolet radiation generating LED's to a source of electrical power. This basically means that the product can also be used with, but is not limited to, solar power, battery, windmill, or electrical outlet.

UV is the only pathogen rendering water technology, which involves no hazardous material handling and creates no chemical by-products. The H2Oelement utilizes progressive UV LED technology, in a compact portable design. The result is a safe water system designed to compliment a domestic market segment comprised of largely aesthetic products, which have traditionally addressed only taste, odor, and hardness.

Among the most popular aesthetic products, for at-home use, are the water pitcher and water faucet mount filters. They can eliminate chloroform, industrial and agricultural pollutants, metals, off-tastes, chlorine, sediment, and cysts such as cryptosporidium and giardia, which are derived from animal waste. These are fine products, but are not designed to stop all bacteria and viruses from entering the water supply.

The H2Oelement provides value to the developing economies where pathogens are ever-present and power is unreliable. In countries such as Africa, people walk 5 miles or more daily to gather water from a borehole. The H2Oelement can be implemented in such circumstances.

In a February 2007 article, Hanovia Ltd, an UV manufacturing company based in Slough, England, stated that: “The acceptance of UV disinfection at water plants treating in excess of three billion litres daily worldwide is proof that UV is no longer an ‘emerging’ technology, but rather an accepted technology to be used routinely by engineers to safeguard human health.”

The technology will reduce the problems facing the current procedures for water purification. The high costs of chlorine can be reduced or eliminated, along with the harmful by-products that it produces.

The goal in mind for Next Energy Wave, Inc. was to design a technology that would be safe to the environment, cost efficient, economically sustainable, user-friendly, and global in use. The company knows that the future of society depends upon the usage of clean and viable technology in today’s world.

The company has completed prototype testing, against wastewater pathogens, generating self-powered tests, with average household gallons per minute (gpm) flow rates, and achieved successful results.

For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release contact Damien Lieggi or visit www.nextenergywave.com.