New watermaker product - Seeking your input

[bruce.c]

Hi everyone, hope you're well! Our team at MIT has continued to develop novel Ion Concentration Polarization technology for compact marine applications. One again, we would like your input. Please take 5 minutes to take this survey which is meant to assess interest at multiple price points given the feature set you all helped determine last time. Just as with my last post, I am happy to share results and explain the analytics tools we're using here.

Link to Survey: https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtr...9naknTve8sBLZI

[wholybee]

I would certainly like to know more about it. Required maintaince, expected life, how loud is it, does it require flushing after use, etc.

[Chotu]

I took the survey. Also, we need to know how it works. Nobody is buying something without an understanding of the process.

This should be in the ad.

As someone who may actually be in the market depending how my old watermaker works when I get it hooked up, I want to know why yours is better. So far there are just some selling points. Also longevity is important.

Also, you have to overcome a LOT of momentum.

I often put links up to things like this that apply to boats. When the technology first comes out. And everyone on the forum just talks it down. That sort of narrative is difficult to overcome.

I put up threads on toroidal props, various desalination methods, etc. All of them were talked down by people who probably don’t understand the science, but have strong opinions that if it’s new, it won’t work.

That’s a big challenge for the marketing team I am sure.

[bruce.c]

Originally Posted by wholybee

I would certainly like to know more about it. Required maintaince, expected life, how loud is it, does it require flushing after use, etc.

Great questions. Thank you for bearing with me re: the sparse information. Required maintenance is just changing pre-filter cartridge- probably a 5 micron filter. Expected life is 10 yrs. Noise is 36dB (comparable to a fish tank filter. I believe we gave that number in the survey). TBD on the flushing question, but likely an auto-flush feature will be included.

For more info on the "how does it work question", feel free to review the paper linked below. Essentially it uses electrical attraction to pull minerals from the water, rather than a filtration process like RO. If RO is a filter, this is a magnet.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.1c08466

[CrispyCringle]

This is timely for me. Im finishing up a solar install and some other electric upgrades on my boat. After that is a water maker. Im up for being a guinea pig. Product is probably years off tho....

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by bruce.c

Great questions. Thank you for bearing with me re: the sparse information. Required maintenance is just changing pre-filter cartridge- probably a 5 micron filter. Expected life is 10 yrs. Noise is 36dB (comparable to a fish tank filter. I believe we gave that number in the survey). TBD on the flushing question, but likely an auto-flush feature will be included.

For more info on the "how does it work question", feel free to review the paper linked below. Essentially it uses electrical attraction to pull minerals from the water, rather than a filtration process like RO. If RO is a filter, this is a magnet.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.1c08466

Oh!! That was you! I read a lot of scientific publications and I almost posted about this. But I figured the usual thing would happen. Lol.

I recognize the beach setting and the case. I watch the whole video on YouTube that was linked from the scientific publication. The one where someone walks up to the beach with it and throws it in the water, makes a little bit of water and drinks it out of the cup.

Nice work!

[CrispyCringle]

I noticed the sample ad shows 1.5 GPH production. Is this the sort of thing that can run continuously? I really like the low noise and low power consumption.

[HeywoodJ]

I'll be the first of Chotu's naysayers

The summary says "15.6–26.6 W h/L (seawater)". The energy recovery watermakers, such as the Spectra use 4.5Wh/l, and even if you factor in flushing you get to something like 6Wh/consumable liter. So, we're talking 2½x to > 4x the energy consumption of devices already on the market. If you back away from energy recovery RO to straight RO you're still looking at a greater energy usage (150%-200%?).

So, to make that all fly, the unit has to be lower cost than a straight RO unit (for the same production) or has to be a hands-down easier/cheaper maintenance item, or some of both.

I'm all for technological advances, but the hurdle is that you have to demonstrate that the mouse trap you have built is better. From an energy perspective, unless there is a lot of room for improvement, not there yet.

At $5,500 for 6l/h we're at about double the cost of an ER RO unit.

That pretty much leaves maintenance (and the noise factor, which is not trivial) as the avenues of attack.