Irish start-up NanobOx has secured first-round funding of $1 million from a consortium led by international agri-food technology investor The Yield Lab, with the remainder coming from DeepIE Ventures and Growing Capital. This funding will see the company complete field trials in agriculture and aquaculture, with the aim of going to market in 2024.
NanobOx has developed novel, patented technology that generates nanobubbles of gases such as air, oxygen, ozone and carbon dioxide directly in water using an electric field. Nanobubbles are the smallest possible size of bubble, having the highest rate of oxygen transfer.
Bubbles are used in a wide range of industries to dissolve gases in water. The smaller the bubbles, the better they are at transferring the gas to the water – but the more expensive they are to generate. “Our revolutionary nanobubble technology requires less energy than it takes to power a lightbulb, an order of magnitude less than competing methods,” explained Dr John Favier, CEO and co-founder of NanobOx with CTO, Dr Mohammad Reza Ghaani, developer of the technology.
A particular focus for NanobOx is using its technology to add oxygen to water using only ambient air. “We uniquely generate nanobubbles from air that are enriched with oxygen, providing an oxygen-transfer efficiency of 90%, compared to less than 20% using conventional aeration,” noted Dr Favier.
Maintaining dissolved oxygen concentration in water is critical to almost all controlled biological processes, but the technologies employed in the $50 billion-plus water aeration market are highly inefficient.
“Our first-generation products are being designed for the treatment of water in agriculture and aquaculture to increase yield and reduce input costs. NanobOx nanobubble aeration technology can be deployed to significantly reduce energy costs and enhance performance in any bioprocess requiring addition of oxygen to process water, including wastewater treatment, industrial bioreactors and environmental remediation,” he added.
Field trials of the novel nanobubble aeration technology are under way with leading horticultural and aquacultural producers and researchers in Europe, North America and Asia.
NanobOx was the winner of Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas ‘One to Watch’ award in 2022 and has been recognised as an early-stage company in Ireland with potential to have a major impact globally.
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