OriginOil forms agreement with World Water Works

California-based OriginOil Inc. has announced that its process partner World Water Works Inc. has agreed in principle to distribute OriginOil’s dewatering and extraction systems to its global customer base. The agreement addresses product integration, manufacturing and joint marketing.

“World Water Works is an innovative company with a first-class manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City, and one of its technologies provides an important concentration stage in our harvesting systems,” said OriginOil CEO Riggs Eckelberry. “This is a major step in our plan to integrate the algae production process for our customers.”

According to Eckelberry, the two companies have been collaborating for the field tests that are taking place at MBD Energy’s research facility in Australia. “The interaction was extremely positive and we realized that [World Water Works] filled a void,” he added. OriginOil’s single step algae extraction technology includes two phases, dewatering and extraction. World Water Works’ technology can be integrated within the system following the dewatering phase to further concentrate the algae solution to 20 percent biomass content.

“After that, the biomass can go one of two ways,” Eckelberry said. “It can either go directly to a biocrude process without extraction, or it could go into oil extraction using our same system.” World Water Works’ Algae Harvesting Technology Optimized system is a patent-pending version of the company’s wastewater industry high rate Dissolved Air Flotation process, specifically tailored to algae harvesting.

“On a functional level, we are integrating their technology with our extraction system as a concentration step,” Eckelberry said. “We are [also] working with them to standardize our devices, and we are in talks to have them begin to manufacture for us.”

Eckelberry noted that the relationship is not exclusive, as OriginOil expects to work with multiple original equipment manufacturers in the future. “Right now we are making our equipment for a small number of direct customers and we’re fabricating them one-by-one, by hand,” Eckelberry said. “This year as our customer base grows and the scale of these projects grows, we need some production of standardized components. [World Water Works] will start at the component level and progress ultimately to a whole system level.”

“The OriginOil team is innovators, but they also know how to engineer solid devices that interface well with our systems,” said World Water Works’ President Mark Fosshage. “We are really pleased to be able to manufacture and distribute for them, and we also see potential opportunities for their technology in traditional waste water treatment settings.”