FullRestoration
Process streams with high-strength organics without fear of rapid and permanent loss of performance, as the membranes can be fully restored with simple cleaning programs.
Lasts ForYears
Lasts for years in extreme environments, ensuring that advanced water and wastewater solutions are not limited by high consumable costs, frequent downtime, and process complexity.
EasiestCleaning
Clean faster than any other membrane in the industry – creating more time for operations and less cleaning waste – and only use simple, inexpensive, readily-available cleaning solutions.
We’ve developed the first new membrane chemistry in over 40 years to solve the most significant limitation to industrial water filtration: fouling.
Membranes are the workhorse tools for creating clean, high-purity water.
For decades, organic fouling resistance has been one of the most sought-after performance improvements in the membrane industry. Moderately fouled membranes will use more energy, consume more cleaning chemicals and produce more cleaning wastewater, and have shorter life. Severely fouled membranes will cease to function.
For membranes to make sense in severe-fouling environments, like contaminated surface waters or high-strength industrial wastewaters, fouling challenges must be fundamentally resolved.
That's the power of zwitterions.
Looks familiar.Until you look closer.
Our superfiltration and reverse osmosis products look like other familiar spiral-wound membranes, until you look closer.
Unlike traditional filtration products, ZwitterCo membranes are built from zwitterions that attract water while seamlessly repelling organic compounds (like proteins, fats, and oils) that normally stick to membranes and ruin their filtration capacity. The result? Our membranes are uniquely immune to irreversible organic fouling.
While the technology is new, the membranes are designed to industry-standard specifications. This means they work with existing filtration equipment and simply drop into proven process configurations to bring entirely new operating efficiency.
The Innovation
01. Positive + Negative Charges
Zwitterions attract to water molecules.
Zwitterions have an equal number of positive and negative charges, so they exhibit an immense, salt-like attraction to water molecules.
This hydrophilic property pulls water to the membrane, actively displacing or repelling organic compounds so they cannot adhere to and foul the membrane.
02. Proprietary Co-Polymers
Copolymers bind zwitterions with hydrophobic molecules.
ZwitterCo’s proprietary co-polymers permanently bind hydrophilic zwitterionic molecules to strongly hydrophobic molecules.
The hydrophobic molecules give the co-polymer stability in water, preventing zwitterions from wearing away over time.
03. Fouling Immunity
Zwitterions create foul immune, water-loving channels.
With traditional membranes, the most severe membrane fouling occurs within the pores. Using the latest techniques in molecular self-assembly, the zwitterions in our polymeric membranes form water-loving channels throughout the membrane layer.
These zwitterionic channels act as the membranes’ pores, ensuring that the internal architecture, as well as the external surface, is immune to fouling.
04. Clean Permeate
Zwitterionic channels retain contaminants and produce clean water.
During filtration, water molecules are attracted to the water-loving regions and can flow through the zwitterionic channels, passing from one zwitterionic chain to the next.
A clean permeate stream is generated as water molecules exit the membrane free of contaminants that were too large to fit through the zwitterionic channels.
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