The Blue Hill-based Hydro-Photon has landed a $3 million investment to help develop technology to purify water while it is in a tube very much like a straw.
Neil MacKay, the 15-person company’s chief executive officer, said the money will take the company through an expected 18 months to two years of development for the new system using LED bulbs to generate ultraviolet light, rather than fluorescent lamps, to purify water.
“LEDs are much much smaller and more efficient,” said MacKay in a phone interview Thursday. “But the UV LEDs are not as developed as visible light LED’s that you’re used to, that are used in flashlights and lighting in general.”
That’s where the source of the investment in Hydro-Photon, the Japanese conglomerate Asahi Kasei, is important.
“There are a lot of resources that come to bear with the company the size of Asahi Kasei and that will get us where we’re trying to go,” MacKay said.
Asahi in 2011 bought the New York-based company Crystal IS, which had been developing germicidal UV LED lights for more than 10 years. Asahi, based in Tokyo, started selling its first commercial UV LED in November.
With the $3 million investment, Asahi picked up about a 20 percent stake in Hydro-Photon and added Crystal IS CEO Steven Berger to the board of directors.
Hydro-Photon’s primary product, called the SteriPEN, can purify a liter of water in 90 seconds. The device requires that time because it has to “ramp-up” to reach the right wavelengths to eradicate bacteria and other contaminants in water.
An LED system could be called up in an instant, MacKay said, making the unit more efficient and convenient by enabling on-demand use rather than purifying water in batches.
“They give us a better opportunity in terms of the fit and size of the product,” MacKay said.
The development of an LED system will help the company expand its international reach into the market for hikers and campers, international travel, emergency preparedness and humanitarian relief, according to MacKay.
That technology also could lead to wearable water purification systems.
The company in September secured a patent for a system to purify water as it passes through something like a straw, tube or sports bottle. The patent also envisions the system could be powered by solar cells, batteries or a pump system, similar to physical filtration pumps sold for outdoors uses.
In total, the company has eight patents, four of which are directly related to “flow-through” water purification systems. It secured its first for an LED-based system in 2010.
MacKay said some of the new investment also will support expanded marketing and sales for its existing SteriPEN models, which are sold for commercial and military uses.
For the immediate future, MacKay said the latest investment will not result in new hiring or expansions.
“I think ultimately, there certainly will be,” he said.