STTR Phase I: Development of a tablet to destroy viruses, bacteria, and protozoa in stored household water

Silivhere Technologies, Inc., Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research Phase I project will address the provision of safe water to our global population. In high income nations, high-quality drinking water is provided through centralized water-treatment/distribution systems. For 2-3 billion people in lower income countries, clean drinking water is not a guarantee. They must collect and store household water, often in open containers without disinfectant. The consequences of these deficiencies include the consumption of unsafe water that leads to high rates of morbidity and mortality from water-related diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated that one possible solution to this problem is to decentralize water treatment so that people treat their water right before they consume it in their homes (e.g. point-of-use water treatment). However, designing point-of-use water treatment technologies is a challenging problem that requires the product to be technologically effective, simple to use, inexpensive, and socially acceptable. This project will develop a disruptive technology for point-of-use water treatment and will meet these rigorous design criteria. The technology has the potential to improve water quality, human health, and quality of life for millions of people around the world while employing US citizens for manufacturing and sales of the product. This project seeks to develop and test methods to apply metallic copper and an N-halamine coating to the surface of a porous ceramic tablet for household water purification in lower income countries. The resulting tablet will effectively disinfect viruses, bacteria, and protozoa in 10-20 liters of stored household water for one year (over 7000 liters total) with a cost of less than 0.3 cents per liter. Copper salt solution will be reduced through high-temperature heating to form microscopic clusters of metallic copper. When added to water, the copper will oxidize to release copper ions into solution to cause pathogen disinfection. This component will be combined with an existing technology that releases silver ions from a porous ceramic tablet. The synergistic effects of these disinfectants may enable 1-3-star certification from the World Health Organization. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.