Purifying water for use in the food and beverage industry, aquaculture, and the dairy industry is becoming an increasing problem due to pollution and an overall scarcity of available fresh water.
Taking this problem in mind, an Israeli company, Atlantium, began operations in 2003 to find solutions to water purification for these industries without the need for adding harmful chemicals to the water supplies.
The need for water disinfection in countries which have perennial chronic water problems, especially in countries like Israel, resulted in the research team at Atlantium making this need a mission and not just a business interest.
According to Atlantium’s CEO, Ilan Wilf, his company’s patented process, known as Hydro-Optic Disinfection solutions “deliver unprecedented microbial inactivation, taking cost-effective and environmentally-friendly water disinfection to levels never before attained.”
Known as Total Internal Reflection, or Hydro-Optic Disinfection (HOD), a uniform dose of ultraviolet light is distributed through the water to be disinfected in a uniform dose distribution (UDD), the result is the highest degree of disinfection, which the company claims is “unmatched in the industry”.
Today, Atlantium’s Total Internal Reflection process is being used not only in Israel, but in many other countries in Europe, in the USA, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. In addition to the aforementioned industries, Atlantium’s disinfection solutions are also being used by municipalities to further purify and disinfect drinking water being furnished to them by the municipality.
In the beverage industry, including mild alcohol content ones like beer, the process is excellent for controlling the presence of water borne organisms that can not only present a serious health hazard, but affect the taste, color and odor of the beverage.
This is also very true for dairy industry in which water born pathogens have a serious effect on the safety and freshness of dairy products, even those supposedly pasteurized. The utilization of Atlantium’s Total Internal Reflection process helps to lengthen the “shelf life” of the dairy products in local supermarkets.
And lastly, Atlantium’s water disinfection solutions, insures healthier, cleaner water in flow-through fish tanks and fish ponds, to insure safer, healthier fish without the need for antibiotics and other chemicals.
Fish raised under these conditions have a much higher survival rate.
News articles dealing with Atlantium’s success in water disinfection can be found in various trade journals, such as Food (May, 2008) and Fish Farming International (March, 2008). Or on TreeHugger and ISRAEL21c.
