OriginOil Breakthrough Increases Electro Flotation Technology Effectiveness by More Than 50%
New electrode design can be adapted to existing flotation installations for greater effectiveness in large-scale applications
Los Angeles – December 4, 2014 – OriginOil Inc. (OTC/QB: OOIL), developer of Electro Water Separation™ (EWS), the high-speed, chemical-free process to clean up large quantities of water, announced today a significant breakthrough in electrode design for its second-stage electro flotation process.
OriginOil calculates this design increases extraction effectiveness by 54% over earlier plate designs, for the same amount of power consumption.
“With this design, electro flotation becomes extremely energy-efficient”, said Michael Green, Chief Technology Officer at OriginOil licensee, E3 Services and Solutions. “I believe that this latest technology will give us a major advantage over existing Dissolved Air Flotation installations, especially if it can be retrofitted into existing treatment tanks.”
Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) is used in both oil & gas and waste markets to extract suspended solids in very large installations. It plays in a sedimentation & centrifugation equipment market estimated to grow to more than $7 billion worldwide. Generating air bubbles at a large scale is relatively energy-intensive and requires the extensive use of chemicals. With this latest innovation, OriginOil’s EWS further increases the advantage of electro flotation over dissolved air flotation, while enabling retrofits into existing installations.
OriginOil recently filed an application for a utility patent covering this innovation: “System for Removal of Suspended Solids and Disinfection of Water.” The inventor was Bill Charneski, President of OriginOil’s Oil & Gas division.
“Bill came up with this brilliant idea, which we implemented beginning with our Colorado rollout,” said Nicholas Eckelberry, OriginOil co-founder and Chief Research Officer. “This is a module that can be placed anywhere within a tank, getting away from the fixed plates typical of traditional electro flotation designs. This is a very important patent as it has the possibility of altering the speed and efficiency of processing fluids for all segments of the water processing industry.”
The new design optimizes the placement of electrodes within flotation tanks to lower energy consumption and improve particle recovery at higher flow rates. It increases effective contact area and improves the inter-electrode gap for increased bubble generation with the same power settings. Tests published in July showed that energy usage with this new technology can average 0.22 kWh per barrel of water processed, which amounts to about $0.03 per barrel at $0.15 per kWh.
Results from on-site testing of a pilot system in Colorado and Texas also demonstrated that water turbidity, suspended solids and oil in water were reduced by as much as 99 percent.
