Water-stressed Singapore bets on new technology to secure supply

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Water-stressed Singapore bets on new technology to secure supply

A host of start-ups discover alternative ways to purify water.

EcoWorth  "super-absorbent" carbon fiber aerogel filter made from recycled paper and cotton can suck oil or industrial contaminants out of water. Astart-up spun out of the  Nanyang Technology University, three years ago, has so far raised around $1 million through grants, angel investments and bootstrapping to help commercialize its .

After a series of successful trials, the company is looking for fresh funding to take the technology to scale and tap into an expected surge in demand for new water purification technology.

Blue Ocean Memtech , another NUS spinout, is working to commercialize a new nanofiltration membrane that could, according to founder Fu Feng-Jiang, significantly reduce the cost of treating water. Fu hopes that the technology could be commerialized within a few years.

Having already applied for funding to develop another new type of membrane, and with his eye on several other technologies, Fu said many people were starting to realize that the water business has a bright future in Singapore. "In my mind I have a few technologies I want to commercialize," he said.

Others are using the country's developing water technology ecosystem as a springboard to build solutions for entirely different markets.

Wateroam, founded by three university undergraduates in 2014, has built highly portable water filters, operated by a hand pump, which can supply clean water to remote communities and disaster zones.

The company's technology has already been deployed in more than 20 countries, and used by relief organisations responding to humanitarian crises across Asia. It's also found a small but relatively lucrative market among "preppers" -- mostly Americans worried about the apocalypse.

"We grew up in a relatively developed city where we open our taps every day and get clean drinking water," co-founder Lim Chong Tee said. "We felt that Singapore being an innovation hub we should really do more, we should help more people."

Startup entrepreneurs point out that there are still gaps in the ecosystem, notably the availability of finance to take innovations from pilot to full commercial scale. But that may change as the challenges of water scarcity in Singapore and around the world become more acute.

"Water, relative to its utility, is unbelievably cheap," said Tom Ferguson, vice president of programming at Imagine H2O, a US water-tech accelerator that recently opened a program in Asia.

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