If you’ve been following news about BioLargo’s AOS closely, you might ask “where is that Spiral AOS we heard about, and why don’t I see it at these pilots?” Today we have an update to answer that question.
BioLargo’s proprietary, innovative water treatment technology the Advanced Oxidation System (AOS) is already in use in field demonstration pilots (which you can read about here!) and is even gearing up for its first commercial trial. If you’ve been following news about BioLargo’s AOS closely, you might ask “where is that Spiral AOS we heard about, and why don’t I see it at these pilots?” Today we have an update to answer that question.
For those unfamiliar with the Spiral AOS – months past we released a blog post explaining the concept of the Spiral AOS and its relevance to the future of this technology. In short, it’s smaller, more efficient, more affordable for future customers, and performs just as well or better than the traditional “stacked” AOS. At the time of that blog post, we didn’t have great side-by-side comparison images for the Spiral AOS, which made it difficult for some people to grasp the difference between the two types of AOS – that changes today.
We’re happy to say that we now have a Spiral AOS prototype reactor working side-by-side with a traditional stacked AOS at our demonstration pilot at Sunworks Farm. Why this configuration? This lets us compare the Spiral AOS to the Stacked AOS in an apples-to-apples way, allowing us to generate field performance and cost data for both types of AOS units in an industrial setting, thereby paving the way for commercial trials and future sales for either type of AOS reactor.
You can see the Spiral Demonstration Pilot prototype here (image below). As you can see, it’s dramatically smaller than the Stacked prototype. This makes it perfect for future applications where physical space is a consideration, like indoor industrial settings and even future home use settings.
Spiral AOS pictured left. Traditional Stacked AOS pictured right.
Why would anyone use a Stacked AOS model if the Spiral is so much smaller? In contexts where space is not important (e.g., in outdoor or semi-outdoor agricultural or livestock settings), the Stacked AOS can perform just as well as the Spiral and offer lower maintenance costs for the customer because of its simpler geometry and inner components. By developing these two different models, we can offer our customers more options, helping them solve their water treatment issues in a flexible, affordable, pragmatic way. And in the end, that’s our goal at BioLargo – to help solve customers’ water challenges.