Irish start-up NanobOx has secured first-round funding of €900,000 from a consortium of venture capital investors led by the international agrifood and aquaculture technology investor The Yield Lab, along with DeepIE Ventures and Growing Capital. This funding will support product development and field trials in aquaculture, with the aim of going to market in 2024.
A spin-out from University College Dublin (UCD), NanobOx has developed novel, patented nanobubble aeration technology that generates high concentrations of oxygen enriched nanobubbles from air with a very low power requirement. Nanobubbles are the smallest possible size of bubble, having the highest rate of oxygen transfer.
“Our technology uses a low-voltage electric field to generate nanobubbles directly in water, using less power than a lightbulb,” explained Dr. John Favier, CEO and co-founder of NanobOx with Trinity College Dublin engineering professor, Dr. Mohammad Reza Ghaani, who developed the technology while at UCD. “Nanobubble generation is therefore unaffected by the solids loading and is resistant to fouling.”
Maintaining dissolved oxygen concentration in water is critical to almost all controlled biological processes, but the technologies employed in the $50 billion-plus water aeration market are highly inefficient.
“We uniquely generate nanobubbles from air that are enriched with oxygen, providing an oxygen-transfer efficiency of 90%, compared to less than 20% using conventional aeration,” explained Dr. Favier. “The nanobubbles are long lasting and act as an oxygen buffer as dissolved oxygen is consumed by fish or microbes.”
NanobOx is initially targeting salmon, trout, and mollusk farming, land-based and marine, with plans to develop solutions for shrimp and other species. “Our first-generation products are being designed under exclusive licence from UCD for use in aquaculture,” stated Dr. Favier. ”We aim to radically cut the cost of oxygenation, as well as enhancing animal health and boosting growth rate.”
NanobOx technology also has application as a chemical-free cleaning and sanitizing system using air or ozone. Enriched oxygen air nanobubbles are highly oxidative when they break and provide a chemical-free means of suppressing phytoplankton, sanitizing pipelines, and reducing the microbial loading on seafood to increase its shelf-life. The much greater numbers and longer lifetime of ozone nanobubbles means they have a much higher intensity of disinfection and will travel further in water handling lines than the larger-sized bubbles used in conventional ozonation.
Field trials of the novel nanobubble aeration technology are under way in Ireland with Goatsbridge Trout Farm who operate a flow through, semi-RAS and with Connemara Abalone in their land-based abalone shellfish farm.
“We’re seeking producers and co-development partners wishing to get early access to our innovative technology to reduce oxygenation costs and enhance performance,” added Dr. Favier.
