The incoming water is regular municipal wastewater. The treated effluent is good for con-contact beneficial use. To make it potable, further treatment, including more polishing and disinfection, will be needed.

We can produce these units now; technically, there is no issue. One of our units was used in a community for three years, and it works without problems. The only roadblock is the regulatory requirement. In most states, the regulations that governs the design of small community system is based on size. Based on the current design guidelines, the system needs to be at least three times the size of our system.

Is there any chance that this technology may become commercial?

The deployable system, constructed using a 20-foot shipping container, can treat 15,000 gallons per day of municipal wastewater (roughly 50 cubic meters per day). It is modular and originally was developed for military applications. The retention time within the biological reaction zones is approximately eight hours in total, and the overall retention time (including all reaction zones, settling zones and utility chamber) is approximately 12 hours.

Not yet. But they have been tested at the scale of 15,000 gpd flow rate, which is equivalent to wastewater from 150 people (or a community with approximately 50 homes).