185 nanometer wavelength in particular tends to break water molecules (H20) into an oxygen atom and a hydroxyl radical (-OH), which are highly reactive and help to break up organic chemical compounds in water. Interest in breaking up hydrocarbon molecules is so high, in fact, (driven largely by new EPA rules set to take effect in 2014) that UV Sciences has three patents pending for a next-generation light source (an excimer gas in a micro-discharge structure) that emits a more energized form of 185 nanometer light. “We’re just trying to make as much [UV] light as we can,” says Chaffee, who estimates it will take two years to commercialize the latest innovation.
The company began selling its water purification systems in March 2009, and generated $164,000 in sales last year. Today the company has 25 customers and has shipped 70 water purification systems, which range from a capacity of 35 gallons per minute to 500 gallons per minute. Chaffee says UV Sciences has forecast sales of $500,000 this year, and expects to generate $1.5 million in sales next year. The question he still ponders, though, is whether the advantages they offer—a product that is smaller, cheaper, and more efficient—will be enough to turn the tide in water purification.
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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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