The founders of Peterborough-based company Aclarus came together in 2011 with the vision of providing an all-natural, safe and effective method for the treatment of water and wastewater using ozone.

Introduced to OCE in their early stages, the team at Aclarus were provided with a Voucher for Innovation and Productivity (VIP) to work with Lambton College on design improvement, optimization and verification of their system. They also had to the opportunity to develop other applications and integrations using Raspberry Pi, a small device that enables users to write programming language and operates as a desktop computer would.

The results of the project impressed the five co-founders, which includes cousins Michael Doran, VP of Operations, and Adam Doran, VP of Marketing and Sales. “We knew the system was strong,” says Michael, “but we were impressed to find out that it was stronger than what’s required for the normal treatment of drinking water.”

Traditional water treatment methods require the addition of large amounts of chlorine. “Chlorine has its purpose, but research over the last 10 years has indicated that there are carcinogenic bi-products created with chlorination,” explains Michael.

“While the standard technology has its place in the market, we can fit a lot of those treatments into one, with ozone providing a stronger level of treatment for primary disinfection,” notes Adam. “Aclarus’ solution can treat water and wastewater without chemicals and can deal with severe water issues in a practical and economical way.”

“Treating the water with ozone involves taking oxygen and converting it into ozone before mixing it into the water or wastewater stream to achieve disinfection and oxidation,” states Michael.

“One cool thing about our solution is that the ozone converts back into oxygen,” adds Adam.

Another benefit to the Aclarus solution is that the system is scalable and can be small enough to treat single-family residences or large enough for industrial and municipal applications. Since the inception of Aclarus, the team have had the opportunity to install their solution in First Nations communities, Ontario parks, medical cannabis facilities, food production plants and as an added method of treatment to municipal water and wastewater systems.

While the environment was initially the bottom line for Aclarus, Adam says that since the company entered the market, they have found that ozone is a solution for everyone. “Ozone has its place in numerous markets and applications – the people consuming the water benefit from a health perspective; the industry benefits from lower operation costs; and the environment benefits in terms of its capacity to effectively treat wastewater.”

With one successful VIP project completed, Aclarus continues to work with OCE and plans to conduct further studies surrounding the capabilities of their system to remove contaminants of concern such as pesticides, drugs and hormones.

“It makes us happy to think of the millions of gallons of water that we’re treating now, without the use of chemicals,” says Adam. “It truly feels like we’re having a positive impact on the environment.”