Startup Feature: A Pathway to Purer Drinking Water from AquaGuidance
AquaGuidance is a US-based startup focused on water purification, filtration technology solutions. AquaGuidance’s gravity-fed water filter eliminates the need for power and chemicals. Cities and communities around the world struggling with access to clean water now have a pathway to purer drinking water.
AquaGuidance provides filtration solutions for residential drinking water and commercial applications where the water quality is poor. Their proprietary drinking water filter medias come from years of focused R&D in addressing challenging contaminants.
AquaGuidance is led by Duane Dunk, often referred to as “The Water Guy”. His depth of knowledge, skills and abilities go well beyond drinking water purification. He’s worked to scale consumer goods and industrial products, both durables and consumables, as well as the service systems necessary to support them. Duane’s global marketing experience includes Memorex® branded consumer electronics and building awareness for new brands.
Technical Superiority
AquaGuidance has now developed the world’s first gravity-fed water filtration technology (patents pending) capable of removing harmful live viruses, bacteria, and cysts to full P231 requirements without the use of chemicals, power, or pressure. Their products handle the taste and odor issues facing drinking water supplies.
AquaGuidance’s virus-removal filtration media is the first known gravity-fed filter technology to pass the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) P231 test protocol for virus removal without the use of chemicals, power, or pressure. The protocol sets up challenging, harsh standards for the removal of pathogens in a variety of water streams including those which have high levels of organic acids. The only systems currently able to pass P231 operate under pressurized flow from plumbing or require electricity and/or the use of chemicals.
In addition to the virus-removal filtration media, AquaGuidance has also developed the industry’s highest-certified capacity filter blocks for removal of lead, mercury, and chloramine. The AquaGuidance proprietary filtration media blocks are designed using a calculated blend of medias such as activated carbons, chemically activate calcium carbonate, zeolites, pacified alumina, metal scavengers, and activated mineral phosphates. The specific media blend is structurally bound with polymers to produce highly porous block filters for our customer’s needs.
The products confront the challenging contaminants and remove them up to 99.9% in most cases.
- Lead and Heavy Metals – >98% lead removal at both high and low pH
- Chloramines – 99.9%
- Chemicals & Pesticides – Benzene, MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) and Chloroform (surrogate for VOC’s) reductions with additional testing to be completed soon
- Pharmaceuticals – BPA (Bisphenol A) reduction with additional pharmaceutical testing to be completed soon
- Bacteriostatic properties
The products leave essential minerals in the drinking water like Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium. They work at a wide range of pressure including gravity block filters. The product offering is available in a wide range of sizes to meet almost any customer’s need. AquaGuidance’s products are made in North America.
Capital Raise
AquaGuidance, like many clean tech startups, pitched investors and were able to secure early-stage financing of $3 million from Blue Planet Group, Ltd (BPG), a multi-national investor-owned enterprise. The funding supports AquaGuidance’s gravity-fed water purification and filtration media, which removes harmful live viruses from pre-filtered drinking water.
The funding round will support market growth for its subsidiary, AquaGuidance’s prototype gravity-fed filtration system, designed to remove harmful live viruses, bacteria, and cysts, producing safe drinking water without chemicals or reliance on power or pressure.
AquaGuidance’s prototype has undergone rigorous independent testing to meet Blue Planet Group’s investment criteria for innovation, efficacy, social impact, and environmentally-responsible technologies. Testing was conducted by MSR Global Health, an independent research and testing division of Cascade Designs, Inc., under the direction of Tim Oriard, Principal Investigator at Cascade Designs, Inc.
With an estimated two billion people around the globe lacking reliable access to clean water, the need for a safe and accessible water filtering solution is acute and helps the investment case.
Impact and Future
Uniquely removes viruses from real world, organic-laden water in gravity-fed situations without the use of power, pressurized pumping, or chemicals. They are the leader in lead & heavy metal reduction. The AquaGuidance corporate family’s rich history of heavy metal removal for industrial applications helped guide development of this unique blend of media for the drinking water industry. With their water purification experience and early data, this startup is becoming the cutting edge and industry-leading company in reduction of pharmaceutical and chemical contaminants for the water industry.
For more information visit www.aquaguidance.com.
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