The three-year, multi-dimensional research and development project is supported by funding from both federal and provincial government channels
KINGSTON, ONTARIO, April 20, 2022 – Purafy Clean Technologies (“Purafy”), a company that provides advanced, market-leading solutions to the world’s water challenges, announced today that it is leading a team of like-minded individuals at both St. Lawrence College and Queen’s University to embark upon a project that includes of both applied- and academic-level research and development for a made-in-Canada greywater recycling technology. Greywater is wastewater from non-toilet plumbing systems such as sinks, washing machines, showers and baths. When treated and recycled, greywater can be safely reused in toilets and for outdoor use.
This multi-dimensional research and development project is set to last at least three years, with funding support in place from both federal and provincial government channels. The greywater recycling system will be installed at Kate’s Rest Foundation, a property that provides permanent housing geared towards people who were once homeless or were at risk of homelessness in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
“Climate change is impacting our world today, creating millions of climate change refugees in the most affected areas,” said Fr. Brian Hart, Executive Director and Founder of Kate’s Rest Foundation. “Kate’s Rest Foundation’s mandate is to provide permanent supportive housing for homeless people in a way that minimizes our eco-footprint. This project with Purafy, St. Lawrence College, and Queen’s University helps us protect our valuable water resources while simultaneously meeting new wastewater volume discharge restrictions imposed on our site by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks for Ontario.”
Water sustainability engineering is at the forefront of the continued commitment to technology innovation at Purafy. While nearly 70% of the Earth is covered by water, only 2.5% is freshwater. Even then, only approximately 1% of our freshwater is accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers, polar icecaps, and soils. According to National Geographic, only 0.007% of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed our entire population 1. As humans, and for all life, constant access to and availability of clean water is a necessity.
The Purafy-led team is focused on maintaining alignment within the newly unveiled Canadian Water Network (CWN) Strategic Plan for 2022-2027 2, so that at the conclusion of the project, the design enables existing small businesses to become new water leaders at the community level as partners of Purafy. “We foresee small businesses in both rural and urban regions playing a significant role in helping Purafy bring this new water conservation technology to market, to both implement and maintain these novel systems within our decentralized treatment network,” said Cameron Runte, VP of Product Development at Purafy.
Once this technology has been validated, Purafy plans to apply it to create a sustainable impact on water security for Canadian home and business owners, while also using this external pilot project as a springboard into international opportunities such as in the Southwestern United States, where drought and the ongoing impacts of climate change have created groundwater supply and quality challenges that urgently require drastic reductions in water use. Groundwater (water found underground in aquifers) is becoming less accessible worldwide3, making it critical to reduce water intake and waste and to substitute freshwater with alternative resources, such as treated greywater, wherever possible.
In addition, the design of Purafy’s multi-stage, graphene-based electrochemical water treatment technology is set to achieve lower energy costs by reducing electrical power demand as well as reducing the volume of water used by homes and businesses every day. This principle will continue to be assessed and validated throughout the duration of the collaboration between Purafy, St. Lawrence College, and Queen’s University onsite at Kate’s Rest Foundation.
The Applied Research group at St. Lawrence College (SLC) will collaborate with Purafy’s technical staff in the test and performance evaluation of a novel system to clean greywater waste streams. This system, designed for decentralized applications, uses a series of filter stages in addition to an in situ electrochemical aeration process to clean greywater streams to drinking water quality standards. Research staff, research assistants, and student researchers from both the SLC Cornwall and Kingston campuses will be involved in the project.
Another research group from Queen’s University will independently investigate ways to optimize the electrochemical aeration process aspects of the project. “We are enthusiastic about our role in the project and believe that the involvement of our graduate students in this collaboration with Purafy will lead to advancement of process knowledge and technical skills that will benefit our students, the company, and Canada,” said Dr. Cao Thang Dinh and Dr. Dominik Barz from Queen’s University.
About Purafy Clean Technologies
At Purafy, we believe in a world where clean water is accessible to all. We apply cutting-edge materials and innovations in nanotechnology to manufacture and distribute robust and effective water filtration systems for commercial and residential use to help defeat the water scarcity issue. We believe that graphene – a thin layer of graphite that has endless potential applications in almost every industry due to its unique and extraordinary qualities – holds the key to developing and producing more effective, safe, and environmentally friendly solutions that deliver clean water in both small and largescale applications.
Purafy Clean Technologies is a division of Grafoid Inc., a graphene research, development and investment company that invests in, manages and develops markets for processes that produce economically scalable graphene for use in graphene development applications by leading corporations and institutions. For more information, please visit www.purafy.com.
REFERENCES:
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/freshwater-crisis#close
- https://cwn-rce.ca/wp-content/uploads/CWN-Strategic-Plan-2022-2027_Website_EN.pdf
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc2755
For media inquiries, please contact:
Kimberly Darlington
Communications, Purafy Clean Technologies
kdarlington@purafy.com
514-771-3398