Voltea was founded in 2006 as a startup company to commercialize membrane capacitive deionization (CapDI) technology for water purification. CapDI uses charged electrodes surrounded by ion-exchange membranes to remove dissolved salts from water in a scalable and chemical-free process. The author works for Voltea on developing applications of CapDI such as for cooling tower water treatment and residential water softening systems. Current work focuses on module stability and lifetime testing while exploring new applications in wastewater reuse and brackish water desalination.

1. Science Meets
Business
Josh
Summers
15-11-12

2. Contents
 What Do We Do?
 How Membrane CapDi Works
 What I do
 Applications
 Cooling Towers
 Point-of-Entry
 Summary and Future Work
3 December 2012

3. What Do We Do?
 Founded in 2006 as a Unilever Startup company
 Now located in Sassenheim
 Membrane CapDI (Membrane Capacitive deionization)
 Desalinates brackish water at a lower economic and environmental cost
than any other available technology
 A simple and innovative way to remove dissolved salts from water
 Scalable technology
 Purification of water volumes ranging from a few milliliters per minute to
thousands of cubic meters per hour
 Does not require any chemicals such as biocides or anti-scalants
3 December 2012

4. How Membrane CapDi Works

5. How Membrane CapDi Works
3 December 2012

6. How Membrane CapDi Works

7. What I Do?
 University of York - Chemistry Masters
 Year In Industry Placement
 Dissertation - Selective Ion Uptake In Membrane CapDi
 Voltea
 R and D - Applications Team
 Work on Module Stability and Lifetime
3 December 2012

8. Applications - Cooling Towers

9. Point-of-Entry
 Water softening for Residential and Light Industry use
 Changes in American Environmental Law
 No longer allowed to put concentrated salt solution used to regenerate
Reverse Osmosis Systems into waste water system
 Partnership between Pentair and Voltea
 Development of Point-of-Entry system to soften water
 Benefits
 High energy efficiency
 Small amount of waste water produced
 Easy, simple to use
 Self-optimisation of cycles dependant on water usage
 Auto clean cycle
3 December 2012

10. Summary and Future Work
 Voltea offers
 Environmentally aware and cost effective water purification utilising
Membrane Capacitive Deionisation
 Current main applications
 Cooling Towers
 Point-of-Entry
 Future applications
 Investigation into:
 Wastewater reuse
 Desalination of Brackish water
3 December 2012

11. Thank You
for your attention