Water Desalination & Treatment

ARBOK-Purification

is the water-treatment application of the ARBOK vacuum platform: a continuous flow-through unit that takes any contaminated liquid and separates it into components by controlled phase transition.

ARBOK-Purification

Technology brief

What this platform addresses

is the water-treatment application of the ARBOK vacuum platform: a continuous flow-through unit that takes any contaminated liquid and separates it into components by controlled phase transition.

TRL 9 (confirmed by Michael)

The challenge

The problem this technology addresses

Municipal and drinking water. A complete drinking-water supply system: the sources describe it as cleaning every kind of dirty water without exception. Treated water is stated to keep for years without special storage conditions.

Source interception for water bodies. Units placed at stormwater outfalls and agricultural discharges remove heavy-metal salts and fertilizer residues before they reach rivers, lakes and the sea. This is the preventive half of the two-part strategy described in ARBOK CleanSea, where biomass removal alone would be undone by continuing nutrient inflow.

Industrial effluent. Textile dye wastewater, where adsorption needs sorbent replacement, biological treatment fails because dyes are toxic to the bacteria, and membranes foul and consume energy. Oil-bearing effluent, where oil is withdrawn as a separate clean fraction.

Hospitals. Installation at the building's water inlet so that only ARBOK water reaches the taps and raw municipal water does not enter the building. Conventional treatment leaves water a living medium and then suppresses life in it with chlorine; phase separation removes the organisms instead of poisoning them.

Microplastic removal. Only particles below 30 nm pass into the vapour, so plastic of any size — including nanoplastic — remains in the residue. Water from reverse osmosis requires remineralization and further polishing; water from ARBOK is drinkable directly.

Emergency response. Arbok-Mobile is the same system mounted on a truck chassis for disaster and accident response.

ARBOK solution

How the ARBOK system creates value

ARBOK-Purification is the water-treatment application of the ARBOK vacuum platform: a continuous flow-through unit that takes any contaminated liquid and separates it into components by controlled phase transition. It does not filter, does not coagulate, does not settle chemically and does not degrade biologically. Under deep vacuum the water evaporates at the temperature of the surroundings, and only water molecules leave the liquid; everything else — salts, heavy metals, organics, nitrogen, dissolved gases, bacteria, viruses, microplastic and nanoplastic — stays behind and is withdrawn as dry product.

The scope stated in the sources is deliberately unbounded: seawater, industrial brines, toxic effluent, stormwater, lake and river water, putrefying water, water contaminated with microbes or poisons. The output is potable or technical water plus dry salts that have market value, with no liquid tail and no consumables of any kind — no membranes, no filters, no reagents, no biological modules.

The economic figures given in the sources are 0.7 kWh/m³ and a production cost of $0.10–0.12/m³, against $2–3/m³ for reverse osmosis.

Contaminated liquid enters the unit and is held under deep vacuum. Water boils not from heating but from the drop in pressure, at the temperature of the incoming stream and of the surroundings — no heat is supplied and no temperature setpoint exists. Only molecules of water pass into the vapour phase; the cut-off stated in the sources is 30 nm, so everything larger stays in the liquid.

Heavy substances settle to the bottom without coagulants, filtration or biological modules. Oil, where present, separates as its own fraction and is withdrawn clean. The vapour is condensed as pure water. The residue leaves as dry salts and solids.

Because separation is by phase transition rather than by rejection at a barrier, the composition of the feed does not limit the process: the sources state that brine of any concentration can be treated, which is where the ARBOK-BRINE application sits.

Market and application

Commercial opportunity

Reverse osmosis is the incumbent monopolist in desalination and water purification worldwide, and the sources argue that displacing it is what would remove a large share of microplastic from the water cycle. Demand segments named: municipal supply, textile manufacturing in China, India, Bangladesh, Turkey and Vietnam, where pollution losses are given as $1.5 bn, $800 M, $300 M, $250 M and $200 M per year respectively; agricultural runoff control; hospital water systems; disaster response.

Quantified market sizing for ARBOK-Purification specifically follows from the segment figures above and is refined at the project-assessment stage.

Production cost $0.10–0.12/m³ at 0.7 kWh/m³, against $2–3/m³ for reverse osmosis and approximately $30/m³ for the shade-ball approach compared in one of the sources. Salts recovered from the residue are a revenue line rather than a disposal cost: seawater yields 4 t of salt per 100 m³.

Use cases

Where the technology can be applied

Municipal and drinking water. A complete drinking-water supply system: the sources describe it as cleaning every kind of dirty water without exception. Treated water is stated to keep for years without special storage conditions.

Source interception for water bodies. Units placed at stormwater outfalls and agricultural discharges remove heavy-metal salts and fertilizer residues before they reach rivers, lakes and the sea. This is the preventive half of the two-part strategy described in ARBOK CleanSea, where biomass removal alone would be undone by continuing nutrient inflow.

Industrial effluent. Textile dye wastewater, where adsorption needs sorbent replacement, biological treatment fails because dyes are toxic to the bacteria, and membranes foul and consume energy. Oil-bearing effluent, where oil is withdrawn as a separate clean fraction.

Hospitals. Installation at the building's water inlet so that only ARBOK water reaches the taps and raw municipal water does not enter the building. Conventional treatment leaves water a living medium and then suppresses life in it with chlorine; phase separation removes the organisms instead of poisoning them.

Microplastic removal. Only particles below 30 nm pass into the vapour, so plastic of any size — including nanoplastic — remains in the residue. Water from reverse osmosis requires remineralization and further polishing; water from ARBOK is drinkable directly.

Emergency response. Arbok-Mobile is the same system mounted on a truck chassis for disaster and accident response.

Installed at the point of contamination or at the point of use: stormwater outfalls, agricultural discharges, industrial effluent lines, hospital water inlets, municipal intakes. Continuous operation. Capacity is scaled by adding units rather than by enlarging a single machine.

Commissioning procedure, service intervals and operator requirements are defined during project engineering for each installation.

ARBOK PURI · ARBOK CleanSea · Vacuum Osmosis · ARBOK-BEVERIX · ARBOK MedZWD · ARBOK-Stellar · SkyManager

Paired with SkyManager the two halves address supply and quality together: precipitation induction produces the water, purification makes it usable. In ARBOK CleanSea the units perform source interception while CleanSea removes accumulated biomass. ARBOK-BRINE and ARBOK-DESALINATION are named in the sources as applications of the same technology.

View preserved source description

Overview

ARBOK-Purification is the water-treatment application of the ARBOK vacuum platform: a continuous flow-through unit that takes any contaminated liquid and separates it into components by controlled phase transition. It does not filter, does not coagulate, does not settle chemically and does not degrade biologically. Under deep vacuum the water evaporates at the temperature of the surroundings, and only water molecules leave the liquid; everything else — salts, heavy metals, organics, nitrogen, dissolved gases, bacteria, viruses, microplastic and nanoplastic — stays behind and is withdrawn as dry product.

The scope stated in the sources is deliberately unbounded: seawater, industrial brines, toxic effluent, stormwater, lake and river water, putrefying water, water contaminated with microbes or poisons. The output is potable or technical water plus dry salts that have market value, with no liquid tail and no consumables of any kind — no membranes, no filters, no reagents, no biological modules.

The economic figures given in the sources are 0.7 kWh/m³ and a production cost of $0.10–0.12/m³, against $2–3/m³ for reverse osmosis.

Applications

Municipal and drinking water. A complete drinking-water supply system: the sources describe it as cleaning every kind of dirty water without exception. Treated water is stated to keep for years without special storage conditions.

Source interception for water bodies. Units placed at stormwater outfalls and agricultural discharges remove heavy-metal salts and fertilizer residues before they reach rivers, lakes and the sea. This is the preventive half of the two-part strategy described in ARBOK CleanSea, where biomass removal alone would be undone by continuing nutrient inflow.

Industrial effluent. Textile dye wastewater, where adsorption needs sorbent replacement, biological treatment fails because dyes are toxic to the bacteria, and membranes foul and consume energy. Oil-bearing effluent, where oil is withdrawn as a separate clean fraction.

Hospitals. Installation at the building's water inlet so that only ARBOK water reaches the taps and raw municipal water does not enter the building. Conventional treatment leaves water a living medium and then suppresses life in it with chlorine; phase separation removes the organisms instead of poisoning them.

Microplastic removal. Only particles below 30 nm pass into the vapour, so plastic of any size — including nanoplastic — remains in the residue. Water from reverse osmosis requires remineralization and further polishing; water from ARBOK is drinkable directly.

Emergency response. Arbok-Mobile is the same system mounted on a truck chassis for disaster and accident response.

Operating Principle

Contaminated liquid enters the unit and is held under deep vacuum. Water boils not from heating but from the drop in pressure, at the temperature of the incoming stream and of the surroundings — no heat is supplied and no temperature setpoint exists. Only molecules of water pass into the vapour phase; the cut-off stated in the sources is 30 nm, so everything larger stays in the liquid.

Heavy substances settle to the bottom without coagulants, filtration or biological modules. Oil, where present, separates as its own fraction and is withdrawn clean. The vapour is condensed as pure water. The residue leaves as dry salts and solids.

Because separation is by phase transition rather than by rejection at a barrier, the composition of the feed does not limit the process: the sources state that brine of any concentration can be treated, which is where the ARBOK-BRINE application sits.

Key Parameters

| Parameter | Value |

|---|---|

| Operating pressure | deep vacuum |

| Process temperature | ambient — equal to the feed and the surroundings, no heat supplied, no setpoint |

| Specific energy | 0.7 kWh/m³ |

| Production cost | $0.10–0.12/m³ (reverse osmosis: $2–3/m³) |

| Separation cut-off | 30 nm — only water passes to vapour |

| Feed recovery | 100 % of intake processed; no brine returned to source |

| Seawater yield | 100 m³ of potable water and 4 t of salt per 100 m³ of seawater |

| Consumables | none — no membranes, filters, reagents, coagulants or biological modules |

| Liquid discharge | none (ZWD) |

| Residue | dry salts and solids, saleable |

| Shelf life of product water | years without special storage |

| Throughput per unit | scales with the number of installed units; total capacity is built by adding modules rather than enlarging a single machine |

| Form factor | containerized; truck-mounted variant Arbok-Mobile |

Architecture and Components

Deep-vacuum separation chamber; vapour condensation and clean-water collection; bottom withdrawal of settled solids; separate take-off for the oil fraction where the feed contains one; dry-residue discharge. Continuous flow-through operation. No rotating machinery is required in the related ARBOK-BRINE container configuration, which the source describes as simple in design and serviceable without highly qualified personnel, mountable outdoors.

Detailed equipment specification and module sizing are defined at the project-engineering stage for each installation.

Advantages

Against reverse osmosis. 100 % of intake is processed rather than 50 %, so no brine is discharged back to the sea. Energy is 0.7 kWh/m³ and cost $0.10–0.12/m³ against $2–3/m³. There are no membranes to foul or replace. Feed concentration does not limit the process. Product water needs no remineralization and can be drunk immediately.

Against adsorption and biological treatment. No sorbent replacement, and no dependence on organisms that industrial dyes and toxins kill.

Waste position. Zero liquid discharge; the residue is dry and saleable rather than a disposal liability.

Contaminant coverage. Salts, heavy metals, organics, nitrogen, dissolved gases, bacteria, viruses, microplastic and nanoplastic are removed in one pass by the same mechanism, so the unit does not need to be reconfigured per contaminant class.

Integrations

ARBOK PURI · ARBOK CleanSea · Vacuum Osmosis · ARBOK-BEVERIX · ARBOK MedZWD · ARBOK-Stellar · SkyManager

Paired with SkyManager the two halves address supply and quality together: precipitation induction produces the water, purification makes it usable. In ARBOK CleanSea the units perform source interception while CleanSea removes accumulated biomass. ARBOK-BRINE and ARBOK-DESALINATION are named in the sources as applications of the same technology.

Deployment & Operation

Installed at the point of contamination or at the point of use: stormwater outfalls, agricultural discharges, industrial effluent lines, hospital water inlets, municipal intakes. Continuous operation. Capacity is scaled by adding units rather than by enlarging a single machine.

Commissioning procedure, service intervals and operator requirements are defined during project engineering for each installation.

TRL

TRL 9 (confirmed by Michael).

The related ARBOK-BRINE container configuration is separately rated as a workable prototype. No distinct readiness rating is recorded for ARBOK-Purification as a standalone application.

Market Potential

Reverse osmosis is the incumbent monopolist in desalination and water purification worldwide, and the sources argue that displacing it is what would remove a large share of microplastic from the water cycle. Demand segments named: municipal supply, textile manufacturing in China, India, Bangladesh, Turkey and Vietnam, where pollution losses are given as $1.5 bn, $800 M, $300 M, $250 M and $200 M per year respectively; agricultural runoff control; hospital water systems; disaster response.

Quantified market sizing for ARBOK-Purification specifically follows from the segment figures above and is refined at the project-assessment stage.

Typical Project Economics

Production cost $0.10–0.12/m³ at 0.7 kWh/m³, against $2–3/m³ for reverse osmosis and approximately $30/m³ for the shade-ball approach compared in one of the sources. Salts recovered from the residue are a revenue line rather than a disposal cost: seawater yields 4 t of salt per 100 m³.

Risk Factors

A standalone readiness rating and per-unit throughput figure are established at the project-assessment stage, so headline project sizing should be confirmed for each specific deployment. The 30 nm cut-off and the "years without special storage" claim for product water are stated without a published test protocol. Deployment at hospital inlets and municipal intakes will require potable-water certification in each jurisdiction. Salt and solid residue revenue depends on local offtake for the specific composition recovered.

Related Technologies

ARBOK PURI · ARBOK CleanSea · Vacuum Osmosis · ARBOK-BEVERIX · ARBOK MedZWD · ARBOK-Stellar · SkyManager · ARBOK-CRYSTALLIZER

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Partnership pathway

Evaluate ARBOK-Purification for your application or pilot site.