Water Desalination & Treatment
removes plant pathogens from recirculating irrigation water by taking the water out from under them rather than by attacking them.
Technology brief
removes plant pathogens from recirculating irrigation water by taking the water out from under them rather than by attacking them.
The challenge
Primary: recirculating nutrient solution in cannabis and hop nurseries, mother-plant rooms, cloners and ebb-and-flow benches, micropropagation laboratories.
Secondary: greenhouse drain water in tomato, cucumber and pepper; aeroponic seed-potato mini-tuber production; ornamental propagation.
Adjacent: any closed irrigation loop where vegetatively propagated stock shares a solution.
Scale: from 0.1 m³/day at laboratory and mother-room level to full greenhouse drain volumes; container module at 200 m³/day.
ARBOK solution
Arbok-PhytoBarrier removes plant pathogens from recirculating irrigation water by taking the water out from under them rather than by attacking them. Viroid RNA, oomycete zoospores, fungal conidia, virus particles and bacterial cells are non-volatile: their saturated vapour pressure is zero, and no mechanism exists for a macromolecule to enter the vapour phase without breaking every bond it has. In vacuum phase separation at 7–10 °C the water leaves and every pathogen stays in the dry residue.
This addresses a gap the industry has no answer for. Viroids — bare circular RNA of about 250 nucleotides, no membrane, no coat, no metabolism — survive UV-C, heating at 70–90 °C for 30 minutes, ethanol, peroxide and peracetic disinfectants, ozone and slow sand filtration. Every one of those methods was designed to damage a structure the viroid does not have.
Second and equally important: ARBOK product water contains no dissolved oxygen, no ammonium, no nitrogen and no organics. There is nothing for a microorganism to breathe, eat or build from, so the water does not re-colonise and keeps for years in a tank. Competing methods deliver temporarily clean water; Arbok-PhytoBarrier delivers a state that holds by itself.
Drain water and spent nutrient solution enter a deep vacuum of about 1 kPa, where water boils at 7–10 °C. Only water molecules pass to the vapour phase. Salts, heavy metals, organics, nitrogen, dissolved gases, bacteria, viruses, viroids, oomycete and fungal propagules and micro/nanoplastics remain in the liquid and are withdrawn as dry residue. Vapour condenses as clean distillate.
The barrier operates by state of matter, not by dose or chemistry. Consequently it is unaffected by strain resistance, turbidity, organic load, contact time or pathogen structure, and no resistance can develop against it.
Documented water-borne transmission this closes: HLVd passed from an infected to a healthy cutting in a shared recirculating cloner within 2 weeks, and across an ebb-and-flow bench flooded twice daily within 2 weeks; the viroid was recovered from the water itself, drain, bench channels, storage tanks and irrigation nozzles at 100–10,000 copies on surfaces (Buirs & Punja, Plants 2025, 14, 830). Independent confirmation on hops with release from roots into solution and infection of bait plants, viroid detectable in stored water for at least 16 weeks (Radišek et al., Eur. J. Plant Pathol. 174:225–236, 2026).
Feed is acidified to pH ≤5.5 before evaporation to control ammonia carry-over; condensate is monitored for COD and NH₄-N. Droplet carry-over is the only physical bypass and is controlled by a knitted-mesh demister, which removes about 99% of droplets above 5 µm — a *Pythium* zoospore at 7–12 µm is above that threshold.
Market and application
HLVd infects 90% of Californian cannabis production sites, on average a third of plants at each, costing the US industry about $4 billion a year through 20–40% yield loss and 50–70% THC loss. Latent hop viroid cuts cone yield 19.3% and alpha acids 8.8–34%; in Slovenia about 300 ha of hop gardens were grubbed up between 2007 and 2020, and 110 ha are under quarantine in the Hallertau. Potato spindle tuber viroid stays infectious in water up to 7 weeks against a $12.2 billion seed potato market, with aeroponic mini-tuber production built entirely on recirculation and never tested. ToBRFV causes 30–70% losses in tomato; CGMMV up to $100,000 per acre per season in cucumber.
The common condition across all of them: vegetative propagation, protected cultivation, closed irrigation — and water-disinfection protocols written against the wrong targets.
Energy cost $0.06/m³ at $0.08/kWh against $0.64–0.80/m³ for reverse osmosis on electricity alone, before membranes, flushing, chemicals and brine disposal. Value protected rather than value produced: a clone with documented viroid-free status sells at $50–69 against $9.75 for an untested one — a 7-fold gap that is the price of the certificate. A nursery shipping 600,000 plants a month moves from $5.85 million to $30 million in monthly revenue on that difference alone.
Use cases
Primary: recirculating nutrient solution in cannabis and hop nurseries, mother-plant rooms, cloners and ebb-and-flow benches, micropropagation laboratories.
Secondary: greenhouse drain water in tomato, cucumber and pepper; aeroponic seed-potato mini-tuber production; ornamental propagation.
Adjacent: any closed irrigation loop where vegetatively propagated stock shares a solution.
Scale: from 0.1 m³/day at laboratory and mother-room level to full greenhouse drain volumes; container module at 200 m³/day.
Installed as a tie-in to an existing recirculation loop, or supplied inside an Arbok-PLANT module. Sequence: audit of the customer's loop and drain volume, unit sizing, installation, commissioning with four-point sampling. Mandatory customer-side prerequisite that ARBOK does not sell: tool disinfection with 10–20% bleach or 1,000 ppm hypochlorous acid between plants, which closes the mechanical transmission route at negligible cost.
Runs on ARBOK-VC (Vacuum Cracking); the water node of Arbok-PLANT. Pairs with Arbok-TRINITY for vector control and with ARBOK-Purification and ARBOK Irrigation on adjacent water duties.
Arbok-PhytoBarrier removes plant pathogens from recirculating irrigation water by taking the water out from under them rather than by attacking them. Viroid RNA, oomycete zoospores, fungal conidia, virus particles and bacterial cells are non-volatile: their saturated vapour pressure is zero, and no mechanism exists for a macromolecule to enter the vapour phase without breaking every bond it has. In vacuum phase separation at 7–10 °C the water leaves and every pathogen stays in the dry residue.
This addresses a gap the industry has no answer for. Viroids — bare circular RNA of about 250 nucleotides, no membrane, no coat, no metabolism — survive UV-C, heating at 70–90 °C for 30 minutes, ethanol, peroxide and peracetic disinfectants, ozone and slow sand filtration. Every one of those methods was designed to damage a structure the viroid does not have.
Second and equally important: ARBOK product water contains no dissolved oxygen, no ammonium, no nitrogen and no organics. There is nothing for a microorganism to breathe, eat or build from, so the water does not re-colonise and keeps for years in a tank. Competing methods deliver temporarily clean water; Arbok-PhytoBarrier delivers a state that holds by itself.
Primary: recirculating nutrient solution in cannabis and hop nurseries, mother-plant rooms, cloners and ebb-and-flow benches, micropropagation laboratories.
Secondary: greenhouse drain water in tomato, cucumber and pepper; aeroponic seed-potato mini-tuber production; ornamental propagation.
Adjacent: any closed irrigation loop where vegetatively propagated stock shares a solution.
Scale: from 0.1 m³/day at laboratory and mother-room level to full greenhouse drain volumes; container module at 200 m³/day.
Drain water and spent nutrient solution enter a deep vacuum of about 1 kPa, where water boils at 7–10 °C. Only water molecules pass to the vapour phase. Salts, heavy metals, organics, nitrogen, dissolved gases, bacteria, viruses, viroids, oomycete and fungal propagules and micro/nanoplastics remain in the liquid and are withdrawn as dry residue. Vapour condenses as clean distillate.
The barrier operates by state of matter, not by dose or chemistry. Consequently it is unaffected by strain resistance, turbidity, organic load, contact time or pathogen structure, and no resistance can develop against it.
Documented water-borne transmission this closes: HLVd passed from an infected to a healthy cutting in a shared recirculating cloner within 2 weeks, and across an ebb-and-flow bench flooded twice daily within 2 weeks; the viroid was recovered from the water itself, drain, bench channels, storage tanks and irrigation nozzles at 100–10,000 copies on surfaces (Buirs & Punja, Plants 2025, 14, 830). Independent confirmation on hops with release from roots into solution and infection of bait plants, viroid detectable in stored water for at least 16 weeks (Radišek et al., Eur. J. Plant Pathol. 174:225–236, 2026).
Feed is acidified to pH ≤5.5 before evaporation to control ammonia carry-over; condensate is monitored for COD and NH₄-N. Droplet carry-over is the only physical bypass and is controlled by a knitted-mesh demister, which removes about 99% of droplets above 5 µm — a *Pythium* zoospore at 7–12 µm is above that threshold.
Pressure: ~1 kPa. Evaporation temperature: 7–10 °C.
Specific energy: 0.72 kWh/m³ net — independently certified by SGS at 0.723 kWh/m³ (Certificate No. 2305080850, 2023) and 0.845 kWh/m³ (Inspection Report No. 210272, 2021), both metered and photo-documented.
Heat recuperation: up to 98%. Water return: up to 99.98%. Liquid discharge: none.
Product water: within drinking-water limits per SGS-witnessed analysis (boron 0.03 mg/L against a 1.0 limit).
Product-water stability: no dissolved oxygen, no ammonium, no organics — stores for years without spoiling and without special conditions.
Consumables: none. No membranes, reagents or catalysts.
Outputs: deionised water plus dry salt concentrate.
Comparative energy at $0.08/kWh: Arbok-PhytoBarrier $0.06/m³; reverse osmosis 8–10 kWh/t = $0.64–0.80/m³ on electricity alone; pasteurisation 27.8 kWh/m³; industrial MVR 35–64 kWh/m³; conventional vacuum evaporation with heat pump 150–250 kWh/m³.
Vacuum vessel with deep-vacuum pump set; ambient-temperature evaporation stage; knitted-mesh demister and freeboard for droplet separation; condenser with heat recuperation; dry-residue extraction; storage tank; remineralisation skid for return to culture; control system with four sampling points — feed, condensate at unit outlet, storage tank, delivery point to plants.
Container-mounted, installs on asphalt or concrete; no rusting because the process runs under vacuum.
Technical: the only barrier with a physical basis for stopping viroids in water, against which UV-C, 70–90 °C heating, ethanol, Zerotol, Virkon, ozone and sand filtration are all ineffective. Simultaneously removes oomycetes, fungi, bacteria, viruses and salts in one pass. No resistance can develop. Does not degrade iron chelates and does not precipitate Fe or Mn, unlike ozone and UV.
Economic: at 0.72 kWh/m³ it is 11–14 times cheaper than reverse osmosis on energy alone, and clears the ~€2.5/m³ fertiliser-value ceiling of greenhouse drain water with wide margin.
Environmental: zero liquid discharge, no brine, no chemical residues, salts recovered as dry concentrate.
Operational: background sodium, chloride and hardness leave the loop, making the nutrient formula reproducible batch to batch — a requirement rather than a convenience where the product is certified planting stock.
Strategic: the phytosanitary application is unoccupied. No patent anywhere claims evaporation as a phytosanitary barrier in closed irrigation, and no patent anywhere claims viroid inactivation in water by any method.
Runs on ARBOK-VC (Vacuum Cracking); the water node of Arbok-PLANT. Pairs with Arbok-TRINITY for vector control and with ARBOK-Purification and ARBOK Irrigation on adjacent water duties.
Installed as a tie-in to an existing recirculation loop, or supplied inside an Arbok-PLANT module. Sequence: audit of the customer's loop and drain volume, unit sizing, installation, commissioning with four-point sampling. Mandatory customer-side prerequisite that ARBOK does not sell: tool disinfection with 10–20% bleach or 1,000 ppm hypochlorous acid between plants, which closes the mechanical transmission route at negligible cost.
Water node (ARBOK-VC): TRL 9, industrially proven, SGS-certified energy and product-water quality.
Phytosanitary claim: mechanism established from physics and from the pharmaceutical precedent, where distillation is the reference method for water for injection with validated endotoxin reduction of at least 3 log. Direct log-reduction measurement on plant pathogens in condensate has never been performed by anyone.
HLVd infects 90% of Californian cannabis production sites, on average a third of plants at each, costing the US industry about $4 billion a year through 20–40% yield loss and 50–70% THC loss. Latent hop viroid cuts cone yield 19.3% and alpha acids 8.8–34%; in Slovenia about 300 ha of hop gardens were grubbed up between 2007 and 2020, and 110 ha are under quarantine in the Hallertau. Potato spindle tuber viroid stays infectious in water up to 7 weeks against a $12.2 billion seed potato market, with aeroponic mini-tuber production built entirely on recirculation and never tested. ToBRFV causes 30–70% losses in tomato; CGMMV up to $100,000 per acre per season in cucumber.
The common condition across all of them: vegetative propagation, protected cultivation, closed irrigation — and water-disinfection protocols written against the wrong targets.
Energy cost $0.06/m³ at $0.08/kWh against $0.64–0.80/m³ for reverse osmosis on electricity alone, before membranes, flushing, chemicals and brine disposal. Value protected rather than value produced: a clone with documented viroid-free status sells at $50–69 against $9.75 for an untested one — a 7-fold gap that is the price of the certificate. A nursery shipping 600,000 plants a month moves from $5.85 million to $30 million in monthly revenue on that difference alone.
Droplet carry-over is the only physical bypass and must be closed by demister design and vapour-velocity control. Post-condensation contamination is a system property, not a process property, though the absence of oxygen, ammonium and organics in the product water removes the substrate for regrowth. Log-reduction on *Pythium* zoospores and HLVd in condensate is unmeasured and should be established by a challenge test — feed spiked with a known dose, RT-qPCR and plating of condensate across four sampling points. A European patent on the combination of vacuum evaporation with a heat pump using refrigerant containing more than 3% HFO runs to 2040 in Europe and 2041 in the US; ARBOK does not infringe it, having no HFO refrigerant circuit, and this must be fixed as a design constraint.
ARBOK-VC (Vacuum Cracking) · Arbok-PLANT · Arbok-TRINITY · ARBOK-Purification · ARBOK Irrigation
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