SBIR-STTR Award

Micronic Technologies a certified woman-owned small business located in Bristol Virginia proposes a simpler more effective and cost-efficient way to remove significant TDS amounts found in cheese manufacturing brine and concentrate retentate water for reuse in a single step TM using their new patented state-of-the-art technology called MicroEVAP .Unlike any other TM water purification system available on the market today MicroEVAP is a system that does not require any pretreatments filters membranes chemicals high heat or high pressure. It separates water from contaminants via a unique system of mechanical evaporation vapor compression and condensation; with reduced complexity and cost as well as increased throughput. MicroEVAP received industry recognition in 2016 winning an international technological challenge awarded by General Electric (GE) and Statoil of Norway to address the fracking market. Micronic was chosen as 1 of 4 from over 100 applicants representing 23 countries speaking to the power of MicroEVA. The dairy industry is a large contributor to the amount of wastewater produced in America (State of Wisconsin 1998).Due to the future limitations on certain constituents and the need for conserving the world's water companies are engaging in new technologies to reduce their environmental footprint. The objective of this Phase I proposal is to conduct a water testing TM program using the MicroEVAP system to clean and enable reuse of the chloride streams and reverse osmosis retentate used in the cheese manufacturing industry. Since chlorides are heavily TM used in the cheese manufacturing industry and MicroEVAP has a rich history of high TDSTM removal there are several stakeholders that believe MicroEVAP may be the solution to their problem. Micronic is partnering with Grande Cheese for this Phase I SBIR Proposal. Grande's objectives of this project are to determine if Micronic Technologies can cost effectively concentrate their chloride streams. The brine comes from the cheese making process and they would like to return it back to cheese making. The nanofiltration/reverse osmosis retentate is generated during whey processing and they would like to concentrate that for animal feed. The main objective is to TM assess the potential integration of MicroEVAP to generate high-quality potable water for reuse in the plant. The project anticipates returning solids and water to animal feed reducing the amount of water required for farms to pump out of the ground and provide minerals that the cows need. In addition reusing the concentrated wastewater for road deicing (non-food grade) by the local county saves 15% in rock salt use. In addition to cleaning the dirty water and recovering a 95 percent throughput utilizing TM MicroEVAP reduces wastewater disposal costs and allows resource recovery from the brine. After resource recovery the eventual small slurry can be dried and incorporated into concrete eliminating the possibility of leakage where it can be sent to a landfill. With over 150 tests conducted MicroEVAP consistently removed over 99% of TDS and most other solids. Micronic Technologies believes it will be successful at removal and concentrating cheese wastewater due to its high removal history for myriad contaminants specifically TDS.

Industry is embracing zero liquid discharge (ZLD) as the water market moves to a moresustainable future driven by environmental economic and regulatory pressures. Micronic'sTornadic One-Pass (TOP™) previously referred to as MicroEVAP™ is the only technologythat enables ZLD of influent industrial waters economically. The market is growing at 8.5percent reaching nearly $12 billion ZLD by 2025 as water resources are depleted and demandincreasing.SBIR Phase I test results demonstrated removal of total dissolved solids and total solids by >99percent concentrating cheese waste chloride streams and creating clean product streamsprovided by our early adopter Grande Cheese.Grande Cheese validated its return on investmentto solidify the purchase of a 1500 gal/day TOP1500™ unit and plans to purchase a unit for theirfacility in Juda WI as they look to achieve 100 percent water reuse. In collaboration withMicronic and Grande Cheese the EPA will be conducting test and evaluation in 2021.Micronic is applying for SBIR Phase II funding to conduct scalability engineering of a largerscale TOP™ wastewater treatment system to conduct:Component Modeling and Validation: Conduct computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelingof TOP1500™ critical components and compare with performance of the system. Fabricate testand evaluate components at larger scales to validate how actual hardware performance comportswith CFD modeling at larger scale.System Value Engineering: Build a TOP1500™ for internal testing evaluation and valueengineering. Key objectives are to simplify system design improve energy efficiency andreduce capital costs to enhance commercialization.System Scalability Modeling: Develop a mathematical modeling program to be used as a tool toproject critical specifications for larger capacity systems to support evolving customer scalerequirements.USDA strategic goals are met under this grant with conservation of natural resources andensuring lands and watersheds are sustainable healthy and productive.