VOLUME 13, NO. 2     NOVEMBER 2000

Andelman '85 has vision for clear water

Everywhere you look, there's a water problem," says inventor Marc Andelman. "It's the biggest issue humanity faces." Homeowners, manufacturers, corporations, nuclear power plants, municipalities and developing nations all stand to benefit from the innovative water purification technology Andelman developed in the basement of his Worcester home. The flow-through capacitor (FTC), an electrostatic filter based on nine of his patents (plus a 10th held by a Japanese colleague), has the potential to reduce pollution, minimize energy consumption, and provide clean drinking water for this and future generations.

Andelman is president of Biosource, Inc., a research company he founded to work on problems of water quality and treatment. Last January he received the Visions 2000 Enterprise Award from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, with the enthusiastic recommendation of President Edward Alton Parrish. The $5,000 cash award recognizes a Central Massachusetts individual for an exceptional invention, idea or technological advance.

Andelman is amazed by the lack of research in water purification, a field that he says has not seen a major breakthrough for more than 50 years. He wanted to overcome the drawbacks of the two primary methods for water purification–reverse osmosis and ion exchange–by developing a system that would conserve water and energy. He calls ion exchange a "Cat in the Hat" technology, because it puts out more waste than it takes in. Both systems require the constant addition of salts and chemicals, and their briny or acidic output can be environmentally harmful.

FTC, by contrast is an "anti-chemical" technology, says Andelman. Charged electrodes of activated carbon attract and hold dissolved solids (such as salts or heavy metals), while the cleansed water passes through. Captured solids–for example, nitrogen or phosphates–can then be harvested for another use, such as fertilizer. At an electroplating plant where FTC is in use, every particle of dissolved chrome is extracted from the wastewater and reused, resulting in financial and environmental benefits. FTC also incorporates an energy recovery scheme that Biosource claims can be 70-90 percent efficient.

"If you want to get companies to address pollution, you've got to do it from the point of view that pollution is a waste of both materials and energy," argues Andelman. "Environmental technology is a dog on Wall Street, because it's a regulatory-driven industry. But if you take it from an economic point of view, it drives itself."

The Electronic Water Purifier based on Andelman's FTC technology is being manufactured and marketed by Sabrex, a small company in San Antonio, Texas. Modular units can be scaled to purify from one to 20 gallons per minute, with a price range from $10,000 to $60,000. Sabrex will be collaborating on a test facility to treat highly saline Colorado River water, and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Products Agency has awarded more than $5.1 million, including a recent grant of $4.5 million, to Biosource and Sabrex to design a portable FTC unit that would supply drinkable water for soldiers in the field.

"This is a wonderful business for an entrepreneur," Andelman says. "An entrepreneur sees value where no one else does. One would think that something as broadly used as water would be considered a good business, worthy of financing." Yet, he claims, large companies are risk-averse, and only he and his collaborators have been willing to experiment with a new approach. "We've been working together on this and funding it out of our own pockets. Now other companies have to get involved or get left behind."

In a phone interview from his research lab, Andelman makes the advantages of his invention perfectly clear. "I just made a nice pot of coffee here," he says. "I just took my coffee pot of water and put it through this thing, and in minutes I had turned tap water into the best springwater-quality water."

For more technical information on the Flow-Through Capacitor, check out the Biosource Web site at www.flowtc.com.

–Joan Killough-Miller