April 18, 2014 – Skyhaven Systems, LLC won a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to develop a mixed-oxidant water treatment system. There are over 2,000,000 small to medium farms in the US where farming operations have contaminated local water resources due to water runoff. These contaminants include manure, pharmaceutical products and by-products, silage, pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers associated with animal and crop production. All of these contaminants make their way toward ground water, surface water, and well water affecting the water quality. Because of the diffuse nature of these contaminants in farming operations, it is not possible to direct all runoff into a waste treatment process to deactivate these contaminants. Accordingly, Skyhaven’s proposed strategy is to treat the water as it is extracted from local water sources and subsequently used for drinking, irrigation, and manufacturing processes.

The USDA has been soliciting innovations for the remediation and restoration of water resources associated with farming operations. Toward this goal, Skyhaven Systems, LLC will develop a water treatment process that produces a mixture of ozone and hydrogen peroxide in a flow-through reactor. This reactor electrochemically produces a mixed oxidant solution using only the process water, air, and DC electrical current. During this development effort, the firm will produce and evaluate this water treatment process for handling high flow rates upward of 2,500 gallons/hour using challenged water sources containing pharmaceutical and pesticide contaminants. The reactor will be optimized to produce ozone and hydrogen peroxide in a weight ratio that favors the chemical formation of peroxide radicals that have proven effectiveness for deactivating pharmaceutical and pesticide compounds.

Applications of this water treatment system will be marketed to the two-million small to medium farms to deactivate pesticides, manure, and pharmaceuticals present in local water sources. Another significant market pertains to small community water disinfection where over 85% of the water systems in the US are classified as small that service less than 3,300 people. Many of these systems are having difficulties complying with the EPA Stage 2 disinfection byproduct rules where Skyhaven’s mixed-oxidant system can help eliminate disinfection by-product formation. Skyhaven has shown the feasibility of producing mixed oxidants electrochemically and their capability of deactivating contaminants. Packaging this technology into inexpensive flow reactors will enable a wider adoption of this water treatment system across many farms and small communities.