The Case for a New Technology For Water Body Pollution

The 21st century has brought the world to the precipice of an impending crisis: a severe shortage of clean water. Water is now being polluted faster by agriculture runoffs, wastes of dense populations, and industries that are producing wastes that infrastructures were not designed for as well as never had to deal with. Old line water cleaning technologies are failing miserably or are no longer cost effective. In the case of new pollutants such as fracking water, excessive nutrients, and personal care product (PCP) residues, the current technology has been grossly insufficient.

A new category of technologies categorized as Advanced Oxidative Processes (AOP) has arisen in answer to these new problems as well as the old. The EcoSOAR™ KRIA Ionizer is the most advanced of these new technologies. The Ionizer is the only technology currently available in the world that produces Superoxide (SO) on a large scale. It is a portable and powerful device that cleans a mile’s worth of water to a depth of 100 meters by taking atmospheric oxygen and converting it into massive amounts of SO that cleans water of organic pollutants, anaerobic bacteria, and metals.

Superoxide (SO) is a species of oxygen that contains an extra electron. It is this electron that gives it its special oxidizing power.

Here is an oxidation rating scale (Daniels. 2002):

• Chlorine Is.....................1.0
• Ozone is.........................1.52
• SO (superoxide)...........2.37

Uses/Applications for SO:

SO will raise the dissolved oxygen (DO) levels in water bodies that they need for their health (USACE Test Report 2014)

SO will control/eliminate excess nutrients that cause harmful levels of cyanobacteria/algae (USACE Test Report, 2014). A recent paper from Harvard elucidated the mechanisms underlying this process (Hansen, 2012). An ascomyte fungas was found to produce SO that then reacted with trace manganese in the water column to produce a mineral that cleaned the water column of pollutants and also reduced the levels of nitrogen and phosphates. Essentially, a pollutant is taken apart and the constituent elements are then made available to the local ecology for recycling. Fenton reactions were discovered in the 1890’s, but only in the last decade has there been a technology available to make use of this reaction. SO promotes the growth of aquatic life and aerobic bacteria that utilize these nutrients, decreasing their levels. An additional factor that SO is much more electronegative than phosphorous which causes the phosphorous to be driven into the sediment where aerobic bacteria eventually processes it.

SO makes it possible to remediate any organic pollutant in situ without the need to dredge or excavate large amounts of soil (Lazar, 2012).

SO will eradicate anaerobic bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella, enterococcus, coliform, and viruses (Reservoir Environmental table). Included in this category are cyanobacteria, now a major crisis. Scientific studies, including the USACE has shown that cyanobacteria and microcystin die within 5 minutes of exposure to SO (Shepard, 1998). The process leaves no secondary pollutants.

SO will remediate any organic pollutant. Examples include PCB’s (Baciocchi, 2005), hydrocarbons, drug residues – in short, anything with a carbon atom. The chemical reaction involved is called Fenton reaction. A SO molecule will react with the carbon atom in any organic pollutant, causing the pollutant to disintegrate. There are no secondary pollutants as byproducts consist of carbon dioxide, water, and various gases. Essentially, a pollutant is taken apart and the constituent elements are then made available to the local ecology for recycling.

SO will oxidize most metals (Shaked, 2013). Once oxidized, these metals will precipitate out of solution and can be easily filtered. A hugely important aspect of this capability is that it applies to radioactive metals in water. It has been established, for instance, the most stable form of cesium is the superoxide form of cesium (Sun, 2007). This allows for the cheap removal of radioactivity from contaminated water, making water safe to use.

SO is a technology that may be the safest available. It is a technology that is used in the fish hatchery industry in Japan to produce fish that are larger and better in quality. These hatcheries are able to discontinue all drug use and see fish that double in in size and newborn survival rates that increased by 1600%. A recent Harvard study has also established the safety of using SO for disinfecting food products (Collins, 2015).

SO is quite common in nature. The immune system of almost all animals use SO to kill viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells (neutrophils, a white blood cell, perform this function). The troposphere is cleansed of atmospheric pollutants by hydroxyls and SO. It is known that SO regulates the recycling of trace metals in the world’s oceans (Shaked, 2013). SO is an important signaling molecule in biological organisms. SO is a key molecule in photosynthesis and also regulates the rate of growth in plants as well as animals (Buetler, 2005).

SO has been presented as a superior, cheaper process for cleaning of water. It also handles pollutants that other technologies fail to address. There are thousands of science paper that detail the performance of SO as a remediator of pollutants. PubMed, a medical site, has published 70,000 articles on SO.

Zebra and quagga mussels are unique among higher organisms in that it expresses very low levels of Mn-SOD which is critical in protecting itself from SO (Manduzio, et.al., 2005). This makes them very vulnerable to SO exposure and death. The literature is replete with studies confirming the toxicity to organisms unavailable to produce Mn-SOD (Melov, et.al., 1998).