Periodic Products Awarded Filter Tech Patent

The Technology Deploys Polymers that Bind to Metals Such as Mercury, Lead and Cadmium and Prevent the Metals from Dissolving in Water

Periodic Products, a Fort Lauderdale company that made a splash with its unique pool-cleaning product, has been awarded a U.S. patent for its filtration technology that collects metals from water.

The new patent allows the company to develop the technology for wide use by a range of industries, said Joseph Laurino, the company's founder and chief executive.

The technology deploys polymers that bind to metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium and prevent the metals from dissolving in water. When metals dissolve, removing them is difficult and cost-prohibitive.

Periodic Products' process makes water easier to clean and recovers the metals for other uses.
Laurino said the company is seeking partners to apply the technology to the mining, waste-management and water-filtering industries.
"The mining industry is 100 times the size of the pool industry. It's a huge marketplace," he said.

In June, Periodic Products received a $50,000 grant from the Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute to demonstrate the commercial application of its technology to the phosphate mining industry.

Periodic Products is "unique in their ability to capture rare earth elements," said Gary Albarelli, spokesman for the institute. "They've done preliminary testing that shows there's a lot of promise there."

Rare earth elements are in demand worldwide for use in green and renewable energy, defense and other products, he said.

Periodic Products said it also has approached a waste-management company in South Florida to build an on-site plant that would remove hazardous chemicals from ash.

"The beauty of our polymers is that we can re-use the metals," Laurino said. "While everybody else has a disposal problem, we can take the revenue from recycling and offset the cost of treating the material."

Periodic Products sells its pool-cleaning products to retailers, pool professionals and homeowners. Its first product, CuLator, was named one of the top 50 products of 2012 by Pool & Spa News.

Earlier this year, Periodic Products expanded its pool business by partnering with Two Little Fishies, a Miami Gardens company whose clients include commercial aquariums and fish farms.

The resulting product, called MetaSorb UHC, is "very effective for the fresh and saltwater hobbiest," said Julian Sprung, owner of Two Little Fishies. The product is designed to remove copper and other cleaning-agent metals from an aquarium.

Laurino was a chemistry professor at the University of Tampa from 1999 to 2010, also earning his MBA there. During that time, he developed a nontoxic, biodegradable polymer, or chain of molecules, to remove and recover metals in water.

Source: Sun-Sentinel

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• Filtration
• Technology