Early Stage Venture Profile: UltraViolet Dioxide

UltraViolet Dioxide’s technology aims to provide an effective, economical chlorine dioxide production solution to the unavoidable challenge of high volume disinfection and bleaching.

Founder & CEO: Frank J. Drehwing, P.E.
Location: South Carolina and Vermont
Industry: Chemical Manufacturing
Venture is: Seed level

Company Profile and Image Provided by UVD’s CEO Frank Drehwing; ipCG partner Nancy Edwards Cronin

Health regulatory agencies and the scientific community recognize chlorine dioxide (ClO2) as an effective disinfectant and bleaching agent. UltraVioletDioxide, Inc. (UVD) has developed a technology that produces ClO2 either in solution, or as a gas, and can be used as the sole conversion technology or as an enhancement to existing ClO2 production technologies.

UVD

Original UVD lab scale system

During CEO Frank Drehwing’s career in water and wastewater engineering, he identified the underlying technology as an evolutionary step toward non-chlorine based disinfection and bleaching applications. Through a series of laboratory, bench and pilot-scale efforts, Frank led development of the UVD technology. Field tests conducted in NYC indicated the UVD generation and treatment system performed at least a full order of magnitude better than hypochlorite in reducing concentrations of total and fecal coliform, and E-coli.

Using ultraviolet light, ClO2 generation is enhanced within a system designed to effectively address the challenges of economics, generation and retention of a concentrated ClO2 product, which can then be used for a variety of disinfection or bleaching purposes. The technology/intellectual property (IP) landscape has been assessed to focus upon the areas of most strategic IP development. The next stage of development includes further work on the ClO2 gas system to provide higher concentrations of ClO2, and more extensive testing toward full-scale commercial applications. Most promising early markets include the pulp & paper, and textiles industry (estimated at $4-6 billion), as well as food processing, and water and wastewater treatment uses (estimated at $5.7 billion).

At this year’s conference, UVD seeks to connect with companies positioned to sell ClO2 systems and/or implementation of a chemical supply and service model. UVD is proposing a team to help co-develop the full-scale system with a partner, develop a thorough, strategic IP portfolio to support the business, and assist in rapid commercialization toward target industries.

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