Milwaukee-based startup
Rapid Radicals has reached the next milestone in commercializing its proprietary wastewater treatment technology.
The company has created a decentralized wastewater treatment system that can treat water in less than 30 minutes – 16 times faster than conventional treatment. While the technology was initially being tested at Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer District’s South Shore Water Reclamation Facility in Oak Creek, a new pilot system is officially operating at another MMSD facility located at 5901 W. State St. in Wauwatosa.
This new pilot system, housed within a slightly larger shipping container than the one where Rapid Radicals operated in Oak Creek, has a volumetric capacity of 10,000 liters.
“That’s a thousand ‘x’ scale from where we started in the lab to where we are now,” said
Paige Peters, founder and chief technology officer of Rapid Radicals.
Her team still consists of three people: herself, chief executive officer
Dylan Waldhuetter and chief operating officer
Will Schanen.
The benefits of Rapid Radicals’ technology are its speed, scaled-down size when compared to a full water treatment plant, and the fact that the system can be placed directly at sewer overflow sites to quickly address backups.
Walking through the newest shipping container turned lab space, the first thing visitors see is a cloth media filter that’s used to remove solids from wastewater quickly. The water then begins an oxidation process within several large, metal contact tanks. The treated water is then discharged downstream from the sewer it was gathered from (tucked just behind the shipping container), where it is once again gathered for further testing.
The technology is also capable of dealing with other water contaminants like pharmaceuticals or pathogens like cryptosporidium.
“We can control how much ozone we give the system based on effluent conditions. We’ve got a sensor that reads real time what that water looks like, which is a huge step for us,” said Peters.
Key to commercializing the startup’s technology will be finding ways to continually automate the process to make it easier to use. Another new feature, a button to easily turn the technology on, is a step in this direction.
Rapid Radicals recently finalized an exclusive intellectual property license agreement to commercialize its technology through
Marquette's Office of University Relations.
“We’re on the path to be making our first sale next year, which is very exciting,” said Peters. “We’ve got a lot of things to do in the meantime, but we’re starting to see the whole arc of the technology transfer process.”
Rapid Radicals has received more than $1.6 million in grant awards that are helping turn the startup’s foundational technology into a viable product.
[gallery size="full" td_select_gallery_slide="slide" ids="574219,574220,574222,574223,574226"]
