March 26, 2024 • 55 mins
Join us as we dive into a discussion with one of our long-time members, Vignesh from Purifloh. We explore the multitude of applications for purifying water, sterilising surfaces, destroying PFAS, and even improving how we preserve food. Tune in and discover the interplay of natural principles and human ingenuity that's shaping a cleaner, healthier world.
Water is life, and this episode delves into the complexities of safeguarding this precious resource. Vignesh provides an insider's view on the formidable task of eradicating PFAS, the notorious pollutants lurking in our waters. We dissect the commercial viability of current decontamination processes, highlighting the unsung heroes—microorganisms—that may hold the key to a cleaner tomorrow.
Our exploration doesn't stop at water; we also cast a lens on the implications of PuriflOH's technology for air quality and the medical field. From the sterility of surgical instruments to the freshness of the air we breathe, Vignesh and I discuss the potentially game-changing advancements on the horizon. The episode concludes with Vignesh sharing why he feels motivated to work on impact-oriented innovation, echoing a similar sentiment that many of our members share about leaving the world a little bit better than how we found it.
For more info on PuriflOH:
- Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Strange Attractor, an
experimental podcast from CoLabs, a transdisciplinary innovation
hub and biotechnologyco-working lab based in
Melbourne, australia.
I'm your co-host, sam Wines,and alongside my co-founder,
andrew Gray, we'll delve deepinto the intersection of biology
, technology and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovation,informed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes, couldhelp us catalyze a transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Stranger Tractor.
(00:45):
This week we caught up with oneof our oldest members not
oldest age-wise, but ones who'vebeen around with us for the
longest Vignesh from Pureflow bytraining, but has picked up
(01:06):
quite a bit of knowledge in thebiological chemistry, physics
sort of space through thecreation of this device, which
makes for an interestingconversation that spans multiple
different topics and domains,which is always exciting.
Oh, and a couple of from Colabside of things.
We oh my gosh, it's almostfinished three months until our
(01:30):
Furniture Business Park site isoperational, so we've just been
watching, I think this week theslab is getting poured for the
mezzanine level, so that will be, yeah, available for lease
pretty soon.
So there'll be 660 squaremeters of lab space.
There's four lab pods of 100square which can be joined
(01:52):
together, as well as our, Ithink, 55 lab benches that can
be leased by the bench in theco-working lab space.
It's going to be pretty awesome.
The thing is going to be builtwith sort of biophilic,
biomimetic design andarchitecture we're looking at
using some nice timber finishes,some spotted gum.
(02:14):
We'll probably try and squeezesome biomaterials in there as
well.
We've been chatting with someof the folks at zeoform and
maybe even Funky Solutions, gosh, biomason.
There's a whole bunch of peopledoing biomaterials for the
built environment and we'regoing to see if there's any way
we can squeeze them into thisproject, which would be really,
(02:37):
really awesome.
So yeah, if you're working on animpact-oriented innovation that
is, bio-led, bio-inspired,bio-based bio-anything, really
let us know.
We'd love to find a way to beable to support you.
If you're doing anythingclimate tech-related, anything
deep tech-related, looking intothe material palette of the
(02:58):
future, looking to try and findmore ways in which we can close
the loop on our linear materialseconomy, you name it If it's a
systemic intervention, thenyou've got my attention.
Oh gosh, is that a dad joke?
I guess it kind of is.
Anyway, let's wrap it here, wrapthe intro at least.
(03:18):
Anyway, somewhat annoyingly, weunintentionally did not record
the start of this conversation,which was painful figuring it
out 15 minutes later.
So, yeah, apologies on ourfront.
Let's just say recording,videoing and doing all the
(03:40):
things as a one-person team isnot as easy as I first thought,
but hey, we got there eventually.
Okay, take two, vignesh, thanksso much for joining us here.
For the Strange AttractorYou've actually been one of our
longest running members at Colaband also the first member that
(04:01):
we've had someone reach out andsay, oh, can you please do a
podcast with them?
We really want to learn moreabout, um, the device and we
heard that it might be able tobe used to treat PFAS in water.
So yeah, it's fascinating, um,just seeing how much people will
talk about these sorts ofthings, just even through our
little network, because we haveno idea how people knew about,
(04:23):
knew about that because you weresaying it hasn't even
necessarily been announced, likesort of publicly.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, it is on.
We are a listed company on theASX and we do make regular
announcements and I think thePFAS has been on many
announcements over the past year.
So it is out there, but I don'tknow.
I am curious to know.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, me too.
Whoever it was, feel free toreach out and let us know,
because it was all anonymized.
I was like oh, this is exciting.
Anyway, could you give us alittle bit of a background about
your personal journey and thenhow that led into working at
Pureflow and then how you, withPureflow, have ended up working
here at CoLabs?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Sure.
So I am originally from Indiaand I did my bachelor's there in
mechanical engineering, andthen I've always been attracted
to innovative technologiesrather than working in a large
company and doing a tiny thingthat gets reflected only after
five years after you've done thework, and so I ended up in the
(05:25):
US doing my master's there, andfrom there I was working for a
company in Michigan calledSomnio Global and I helped to
write the patent for atechnology that we are calling
the free radical generator,which is the core for the
Pureflow products.
(05:45):
And so the FRG technology wasquite interesting to me right
from the beginning, right out ofschool really, and it was my
first job professionally andI've had a lot of fun finding
the different applications forit, which you know have been
quite varied, ranging from watertreatment, air treatment,
(06:08):
surface sterilization, even foodpreservation.
You know we can get rid offood-ripening hormones and
increase shelf life.
So yeah, I've really enjoyed mytime with both Somnio and
Pureflow, you know, exploringall the different applications
of the technology.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Just to clarify.
So the free radical generatorcreates a cool plasma, right?
Could you speak to that and howit's different to a hot plasma?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Sure, sure, sure, Okay, the cold plasma.
So yeah, the FIG is a coldplasma generator, which means
that we create an ionizedenvironment in a controlled
manner.
A hot plasma is like on the sun, where just the temperatures
convert matter into its fourthstate, not solid, not liquid,
not gas, but plasma.
(06:58):
And cold plasma is a similarstate that we achieve via
electricity, high voltage ratherthan temperature, and so our
technology is good at doing thatand maintaining it and doing it
at high energy efficiency.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's also quite robust and can handle high
humidities, high and lowtemperatures and so on, which
makes it quite versatile andopens up all of these
applications that I justmentioned yeah, so, and when you
came to us, so that was duringcovid, so you're one of you're
exempt from, I guess, stoppingdoing work and innovation,
(07:35):
because you were one of those.
Let's say, one of thatportfolio of potential solutions
that you could do was actuallyremoving airborne pathogens, yes
, so yeah, maybe you could speakto how we ended up sort of
working together at CoLabs onthat.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Sure, so yeah, we do have the.
So the CoLabs technology.
When you pass ambient airthrough it, it can destroy
microbes, including viruses suchas the COVID, and we wanted to
test that and get some resultson it, and we were looking for a
lab space to do that moreeasily rather than setting up
our own separate space here.
(08:13):
And I think you guys were theonly ones who were offering
something like that and luckilyyou were in Melbourne, close to
us, so we ended up.
You know, it was meant to be.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, no, it was great it was.
It was really fun just whenthings like that pop up.
So we obviously had yourselfcome to us.
Um, then we were at that timewe also had, I think, john from
raditech working on rapidantigen tests.
Um, there was some engineeringgroups that we were helping look
at exploring ways to create 3Dprint masks to be able to
(08:44):
provide to hospitals, as well asSteriBright, which is now
Brightspace, which is anothercompany looking at doing, I
guess, air purificationtechnology through a HVAC system
, which it turns out there mightactually be a little bit of a
collaboration there that youguys are looking at working on.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, we explored the possibility.
We found that adding the FIG tothe air purification process
there that you guys are lookingat working on yeah, we explored
the possibility.
We found that adding the FRG tothe air purification process in
general with any HEPA-based airpurifier increased the pace at
which microbes were removed in aroom.
So, yeah, we are stillexploring that possibility.
Let's wait and see, although wehave found that the market for
(09:26):
air purifiers has sort of cooleddown post-COVID.
Nobody wants to talk about, youknow, germs anymore.
They're sick of, you know, justhaving the same conversation.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So we might pick it up again in a bit, but I think
that's also what's fascinatingabout this portfolio approach,
of knowing that a device can beapplied in multiple different
contexts and, in a way, havingsomething prepared in a shelf
you're like, okay, cool, we'vegot that to like TRL 3 or 4.
We know that we could push downon this and probably raise
funds based on that, but it'salso thinking what's the most
(09:57):
appropriate use case now?
And just to bring it back tosomething that we were sort of
saying at the start, I know thatone of the most interesting
potential use cases that we'relooking at with the Pureflow
device is potential treatment ofwastewater to potentially
remove PFAS.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So PFAS, to just give you anintroduction of what it is, it's
poly and perfluoro acids, knowacids uh, octanoic sulfanoic
acids and uh.
It's a family of compounds.
It's I think the list goes totens of thousands of similar
(10:36):
compounds.
I think at least 32 000 orsomething like that oh gosh and
uh, it's basically the chemicalsthat that are usually used in
firefighting form and also inapplications such as household,
you know, non-stick pans andthings like that.
Because, well, the reason thatthey came up with it was, you
know, it was a cool chemicalthat couldn't be easily degraded
(10:58):
in the environments.
That that's great, but also itcan't easily be degraded in the
environment, which is now aproblem after it's been
discovered to be carcinogenic,and also it apparently follows
the life cycle of animalsthrough the ecosystem.
It goes to.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Bioaccumulates into like the apex predators.
Yeah, all the way.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So it goes from the water to the plants, to the
animals, ends up in us as well,so even the fish, everything and
more and more.
I think countries around theglobe are finding PFAS,
contaminated water sources andsoil as well.
You know australia had a caseof I think I forgot the exact
numbers, but large areas of landthat are contaminated with PFAS
(11:43):
.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, especially because of all the bushfires and
when we're dropping them downthe foam is completely filled
with this stuff which, yeah, asyou were saying, it turns out is
toxic to life, which should notreally come as a surprise given
the fact that it's not existentin nature.
But I guess this is the thingwhen people don't take like a
(12:05):
green chemistry based approach,or don't think what's the second
, third, and thought ofconsequences of of chemical x,
um, which, yeah, obviously canpose a bit of a problem.
But I guess, even then,thinking about that sort of that
, that approach, um, how do wehave you been running tests to
see like, okay, cool, so thiscan break down pfas, but how do
(12:28):
we know that it's breaking itdown into something that's not
just like the equivalent of aplastic being broken down to a
microplastic, into a nanoplastic, which is still bad for you?
is is there does it look likethe?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
the preliminary reports are looking good in
terms of what it's broken downinto, yeah, that's interesting
because one of the common uhproblems with uh advanced
oxidation process, which iswhich is basically when you
produce hydroxyl radicals inwater, either by a combination
of ozone or hydrogen peroxide oruv light or something like that
a problem they've observed withPFAS destruction commonly is
(13:02):
that longer chained compoundsend up breaking into potentially
more harmful and more resistantto degradation, shorter chained
compounds, but with our testingwe found that that's quite low.
Whenever it does exist.
We've not found a lot of caseswhere, for example, an eight
(13:25):
carbon chain longer PFAScompound breaks down into a six
carbon PFAS compound.
So hopefully we do have asolution there.
It is different from otheradvanced oxidation processes,
and currently what's theaccepted, I guess, standard in
the industry is to either juststore the water until we find
(13:47):
another solution, or to run itthrough activated carbon, which
captures around 90% when it'sfresh, and then eventually it's
going to get saturated and thenyou incinerate all of that
carbon.
Or there are newer methodscoming around now, but we
believe that we have atechnology that's quite close to
(14:08):
commercialization and that'salso standing out in terms of
energy consumption.
We think that our process isquite efficient in terms of
energy consumption because ofthe core technology that we have
, and now we're in the processof running repeated tests to
prove that we can do this.
And then we have a partner inAdelaide called Osmoflow, and
(14:33):
they are a reverse osmosiscompany and the collaboration is
based around the concept ofwell, let's go through a reverse
osmosis cycle from the sourcewater to concentrate the
contaminants, including PFAS,and then run it through the flow
system and get rid of that PFAS.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So we are working towards a commercial solution
based on this and so obviously,I was very excited by this as
soon as I found out about it andspoke to quite a lot, quite a
lot of people in our network, soI'm sure you're familiar with
uh, the regen melbourne crew andhow one of their sort of key
goals is to make the birrarungriver swimmable, um, and so
(15:13):
naturally, um, you know thissort of technology is a
fascinating concept to be ableto help treat all of the uh the
rivers systems which have a lotof pollutants in them.
Is there anything?
So I know that we made somepotential introductions.
I don't necessarily want toname LCAs or water authorities,
but you know we did have someinitial discussions there.
(15:35):
Have they picked up or is thereany potential field testing
that might be happening?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
There is some potential field testing that's
happening via our partners, uh,you know, the osmo flow has a
few connections with southaustralian uh councils and they
have a plant running in the us,in new mexico, which we want to
potentially collaborate oninstalling a pilot.
So there is uh, there is worktowards that.
(16:03):
Nothing.
Nothing has happened here yet,I guess because we don't have
commercial technology yet.
We don't have the product yet Ithink people will get more
excited once we get to thatstage.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see how,
because of the nature of how thedevice works, it has to be in
very close proximity to breakdown the pfas.
Am I correct?
Like it's not like you could umkind of shine it like a
flashlight on water or on soilto treat it?
You would need to be yeah, wedon't.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Uh, so there is.
I mean, what you're talkingabout is exposing the water
directly to cold plasma, whichis also something we are
exploring, but it's not at a TRLthat's high enough to be
commercial.
So what we have been successfulat is extracting the gases from
the device, even if it'srunning with ambient air, and
(16:56):
then mix that with water to getgood results as well, so that's
something that's more commonlyused.
It's been around for hundreds ofyears already now maybe not
hundreds, maybe quite a fewyears.
Definitely, where gases havebeen mixed with water,
particularly ozone has beenmixed with water at least for 80
years.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, because that's how the wastewater treatment
plants use a similar sort oftechnology right.
Yeah, they do.
Yeah, okay, it would beinteresting to know whether or
not there is any like biologicalum collaboration, like, is
there a bio-led technology or um, literally just a microorganism
that you could partner withdownstream to process some of
(17:38):
what's left over as a foodsource?
I'd be curious to know have youdelved into or looked into
whether or not that's apotential possibility?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, believe it or not, it actually definitely
exists already with wastewatertreatment.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So there are certain I mean water has everything all
kinds of contamination.
There's some kinds ofcontamination that are
biodegradable and some that arenot and some that are not.
So the contamination that's inthe water, it's gauged by a
metric called chemical oxygendemand, which is basically the
(18:17):
amount of oxygen that would berequired to completely oxidize
all the chemicals down to carbondioxide water.
But there's also a biologicaloxygen demand, which talks about
the biodegradable chemical partof that total cod.
And when there is a wastewatersituation where the water has a
lot of biodegradable chemicals,it is usually subjected to a
(18:39):
membrane bioreactor or abioreactor of some sort where,
you know, bacteria interact withthe water and convert a lot of
the complex carbohydrates orother nutrient or contaminant
into simpler or even carbondioxide water level.
So it does happen.
(19:00):
It is part of most sewagetreatment plans okay.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
So is that?
I guess the direction thatyou'd be looking at going for
this is going well.
The sewage treatment plants area really obvious potential
candidate, but is this somethingthat could be factored into
waterways in some way, shape orform?
Like what?
What I guess is the is thevision for being able to, at
least with this part of theportfolio, like what would.
(19:26):
How would you see this playingout ideally in, say, like five
or ten years time?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
what we would want to do is, uh, I mean for the pfas.
For areas where pfas is the mainissue, we would like to provide
a custom, customized solutionand where they can use the
technology to bring the PFASdown to acceptable levels, or
overall with all wastewatertreatment.
What we want to do, like yousaid exactly what you said is
(19:53):
what we want to do is basicallybe a pre-treatment step.
Convert a lot of the nonbiodegradable chemicals, such as
PFAS, into biodegradableversions which then can be
destroyed easily with the MBR orany bioreactor.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
So you studied engineering.
Yes, right, you have a prettygood grip on physics, chemistry
and biology.
Was that self-taught or liketaught in the context of what
you're doing?
How did you, I guess, developor learn these skills?
Was it on the job?
And would you kind of consideryourself or consider this sort
(20:33):
of innovation as being, you know, not just, I guess, an
engineering feat, but maybe alittle bit more
transdisciplinary, right,because you're drawing on?
So many different domains ofknowledge and understanding.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, well, I think because of the experience in the
startup sort of sector, whereeverybody wears all hats at some
point or the other, we had tosort of all of us learn
microbiology and more chemistrythan we're used to, not just
engineering.
So I and I think you know, anytechnology really at the core is
(21:06):
interdisciplinary.
You can't do anything withoutknowing at least a bit about
lots of other things as well.
So, yeah, I think it's anatural process and what is your
like?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
so if you're having to find a way to, let's say,
forage for this information orfigure out what's like, useful,
like, do you?
I'm curious to know what yourprocess is for learning this, do
you just?
Is it a Google situation?
Are you reaching out to likemembers of our network?
Are you reaching out to membersof your network Like?
How does that process unfold?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's a bit of everything I guess you know
pretty pretty much.
Try to learn from whateversources at hand.
Definitely, being able to speakto some of the members in the
network is definitely quiteuseful.
Lets us bridge the gap quite abit.
Especially, we've had a lot ofhelp with the microbiology side
of things because of having somany biotech-related startups
(22:01):
here, and apart from that, justliterature surveys are the first
step to any scientific approach, so that's where we start.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Nice.
Is there any, I guess,significant milestones?
So obviously we're talkingabout the PFAS category.
If we take that step back andlook at it from the platform of
Pureflow as a whole, are thereany significant milestones
coming up for you?
Or yeah, what's the current layof the land?
Like, looking like.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Currently, the focus has been a bit more on the PFAS
side, just because it'ssomething that we believe the
market will take on a bit easier, and we are also exploring food
preservation, using thetechnology to increase shelf
life, and we're exploringpartnerships there.
In terms of milestones, well,just being able to commercialize
(22:55):
the PFAS technologies, the PFASremoval technology, is the
first thing we're looking forcurrently, along with hopefully
getting into the R&D side of thefood preservation, to the point
where we can approach somebodylike a large grocer to extend
the food shelf life of theircrops.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Okay, cool, you know that we have the fridges that we
over in unit 20 to be able tohave we have we done anything?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
yet.
No, I haven't.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Uh, I would love to, though yeah, we should probably
have a chat about that.
That would definitely bepositive.
I'm just hearing, hearing youtalk, talk about that.
I'm like, oh well, we couldprobably yeah no, uh, pilot
testing.
I thought they were being usedby cortical no, so I, oh I don't
think cortical were using oh,you mean the big ones out the
(23:45):
back right, because they are thecommercial ones.
I reckon we could probably getour hands on one of them that
would be awesome yeah, yeah, soit's a bit of a random side note
.
Um, cool, okay, so that'shappening and the food
preservation is happening, socould you speak to?
So I'm assuming that whenyou're saying it?
Um, it breaks down ripeninghormones as ethylene right.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
What so if it's, if it's running in the air um, I'm
assuming you're going to have tobe running at like a fan or
like.
How would the process work inthat application?
It sounds like it's going to besimilar but different.
Right, because you're notpumping the free radicals into a
, into a liquid medium?
Yeah, it's going.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
You're running the air through and filtering it out
yeah, so there's two approachesthat we can take to that, and
the objective really is toextend food life by two methods.
One is by removing ethylene,and that especially applies to
produce that ripens after, afterit's harvested, such as bananas
(24:49):
or avocados.
They ripen afterwards, butthere's many, for example,
berries, that don't ripen butrather, you know, get decay
after right.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So it's not just the ethylene, but you're also saying
we can um potentially remove asubstantial amount of
microorganisms that might beginto break that food down and
decompose it exactly okay, soagain.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So there's two modes of operation, potentially so, in
when, in environments that aregoing to be closed up for a long
time, and just transportation,for example, or cold storage for
several weeks or several months, what we can do is we can have
a small amount of free radicalsescaping into the room from the
(25:37):
device along with treatingeverything that passes through
the device.
And there's an alternativeapproach in, for example, a
walk-in fridge, where we don'twant potential exposure to ozone
.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I was going to say, yeah, how does that work in that
context?
But you've already been into it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We are able to also easily filter out ozone and
other harmful things and in thatcase all the work happens
within the reactor.
So we have increased airflow,so that it recirculates the air
from within the fridge and getsrid of all ambient you know,
everything that's in the air,including ethylene and then
(26:13):
leaves the area quite safe okay,cool.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
What are some of the other applications you?
We've gone through a few,because I just find this
fascinating, because obviouslyyou've been here at the space
for so long and we've beenseeing you come in and working
on certain applications.
I mean, I even was helpingearly on with some of the
testing protocols for theremoval of certain bacteria, so
(26:38):
I know the tech and I'm familiarwith what it looks like in that
form.
We've gone through the PFAS.
We've gone through the foodpreservation.
Is there anything else?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well, yeah, air purification, for sure, again
similar to the food preservationwe can do either engaging it in
a way that it sterilizes thespace slightly with some free
radicals or just filter outeverything.
And we also have a device thatproduces zero ozone, so it's
perfectly safe but still managesto bring down the bacterial
(27:14):
levels, and that was what wewere talking about in the
context of SteriBrightBrightSpace improve the
filtration efficiency without uhproducing any ozone at all.
So that's something we do withthe air and uh, and apart from
that, what we have come up with,which is quite unique, is a
(27:34):
system for treating airconditioning coils, which is
what I think you were helping uswith, yeah, in the beginning.
So, uh, so what that uh does isyou can uh any.
You know, for example, hotelrooms are a big source of cross
infection and uh, we are allfamiliar with the popular
stories that came out of.
You know how hotel rooms werethe cause for australia's uh,
(27:56):
you know, becoming quiteexpansive, and so what we can do
there is, apart from purifyingthe air, we can offer,
potentially, a product that canbe handled by janitors and just
hung on the air conditioningvents and then it runs for
(28:18):
around 10, 15 minutes gets ridof 90 plus percent of microbes
that are usually deposited onthe air conditioning.
Because you know, uh, when inany in any hotel room, uh, the
ac coils are the best place forgerms to hide in, because all of
the air literally getsrecirculated through that
circuit and also a lot of thewater gets condensed there.
(28:40):
So it's very natural for germsto deposit on the ac coils.
And we have a potentialcombination solution of let's
treat your air and let's treatyour air conditioning coil as
well, on a daily basis orwhenever the room is cleaned.
So that's something we've.
I mean, that's again.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's, it's a trl, uh, seven, eight, uh, pretty much
ready to go, but just waitingfor market reception and so when
you say that combination there,um, are you also referring to
the um, because there was alsolike a, a coating that could be
used to help.
So is that an additional thing,um, or you?
(29:21):
Is that something that you werereferring to in that piece
there?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
yeah, that coating was mainly to, uh, improve the
effectiveness, so that, uh, youknow, ac coils can corrode over
time, and not a lot, a lot.
A lot of hotels will replace iton time.
And so this coating wassupposed to just, you know,
remove some of the and justimprove the overall efficiency
of the Pureflow system.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Okay, so it's ancillary.
It's another thing, but itcould potentially fit within the
wider ecosystem.
I guess, that you have of theproduct being applied.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
And apart from all of that, we've also explored
sterilization in terms ofinstruments or hospital
environments.
That's again another majorsource of infection
Hospital-acquired infections isa huge problem across the world
and we've also worked towardseither forming an autoclave-type
(30:19):
device which doesn't use steamor heat but still managed to
sell nice things.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I can imagine, I can.
My head is just going wildthinking about because there's
so much waste plastic wastespecifically that happens in a
lab environment yeah and I'dlove to hear from your
perspective.
Do you think that could thenpotentially mean that you might
be able to use a device likePureflow's device to essentially
(30:48):
sterilize a pipette tip orsomething of the likes and allow
it to be reused?
Or is that device a little bittricky because it's you know
you'd be having to get in andaround and all over, or is that
something that you think is isis feasible?
Um, from, I guess, yourperspective?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
yeah, so there's different uh levels of uh
sterilization that's requiredfor hospitals, typically uh
something that's a surgical tool.
Uh has to have, you know, thebest, uh a surgical tool has to
have the best the minimum numberof germs possible, and really
they don't spare any expense ingetting it to that point.
(31:34):
Hospitals have massive roomswhere there's very specific
processes by which instrumentsget sterilized on a daily basis,
and that includes washing themand then putting them in
packages that allow thesesterilizers to get in, and then
uh so that's how they do it.
I was always wondering, becauseI'm in my mind, I'm like I'm
gonna sterilize it and then wrapit in a package that must then
just contaminate it so thewrapping has to allow for the
(31:55):
sterilant to enter but not thegerms to enter, so it's so it's
like a like, almost like aporous membrane yeah, yeah but
is it paper or is it poly?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
what is the?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
usually a mixture of uh, you know, depending on the
specific sterilization process.
So, for example, if it's heat,then it has to be something that
can tolerate the heat.
If it's oxidizers, again has totolerate oxidizers.
Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Apart from that, there's some toxic chemicals
that are used, like formaldehyde, sometimes, uh I'm just trying
to think what could be like Ican, I can see in my head the,
the use of, like pure flowsdevice to sterilize, coupled
with a bio-based um, uh, let'ssay, petrochemical replacement
for some of that packaging, andI'm wondering, like that would
(32:44):
be a very interesting, I guess,collaboration effort to have a
think about, because this issomething that we think about
almost daily is just, you know,every time there's a single-use
piece of plastic that you'retaking off of this every time
you use the pipette.
So it's like there's all of thisstuff that it feels like it
actually wouldn't be that hardof a design challenge to fix.
But the issue always seems tocome from the side of like, well
(33:08):
, we can't just run that throughan autoclave, cause you'll melt
the plastic, cause it's toohigh a temperature.
So this I would love to know soif you were going to be
sterilizing something multipletimes using this device, would
that actually impact therobustness of a plastic over
(33:28):
time?
So if it was constantly exposedto the free radicals, is that
going to then start to striplayers of the plastic off?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Again, it depends on the type of plastic, like, for
example, there's a lot of uh,the medical instruments or
tubing is can be silicone orsomething like that, that
doesn't really get impacted byour treatment, but if it's like
polyethylene or something, it isgoing to degrade eventually.
But so again, I was talkingabout different levels of
(33:56):
sterilization.
There are certain instrumentsthat uh that are not surgical
tools.
Uh, for example, uh it can bean ultrasound, uh you know the,
the device, or it can besomething that uh used for
colonoscopy or something likethat.
That doesn't have to be ahundred percent sterile, it just
shouldn't uh have you know,pathogens.
(34:18):
Yeah exactly, and there areinstruments out there which are
present, usually in clinicians'offices, that they can pop it
into a quick cycle in sort of amassive autoclave and then use
it for the next patient.
So we have also been exploringan option of that sort.
But, like I said, there's somany different applications that
(34:41):
, uh, you know we get pulled inall these different directions.
So we we're trying to justfocus on a couple of issues at
the moment and see what else themarket says is important yeah,
that I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
To me that makes sense right and I and I think I
can, as I said, I can also seemultiple collaborations popping
up to be able to try and supportthis from a challenge-led
perspective.
I can imagine that you weresaying before, getting that
market interest or market demandis something that you're
currently trying to figure outwith the PFAS, and I can see how
(35:14):
, with this sort of device,looking at doing the medical
device sterilization andtreatment, obviously circularity
and waste is a big thing inthat space and everyone knows it
and people might be willing toexplore it.
So I can imagine or seesomething where, like a whole
group of you know, hospitalscome together and say, yeah,
we're happy to be able to fundthe research, to pilot, see if
(35:36):
this works, because if it does,that helps them be way less bad
in terms of yeah, apart fromwaste as well, you know, energy
consumption is the other massivething, because anything that
you sterilize with steam, you'renot only just increasing the
temperature, you're also boilingwater right which you you know
you're expanding the latent heatof converting all of that
(35:57):
liquid water into a gas and thenusing that to sterilize
something.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So all of that energy is where we think we can do
better.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Right.
So can you actually speak tothat?
Because when my non-physics Ishouldn't say that I'm into
physics, but I'm definitely notas switched on with it as you
are when I hear you say coldplasma, to me the energy
required to get something to acold plasma seems like more than
(36:26):
the energy to get something togo from a liquid to a gas.
Could you explain, I guess,maybe, how you can have those
energy efficiencies andaffordances when which mean that
it actually is better thanturning water into steam,
because I can't quite squarethat in my head, how that would
work.
So I'm really curious to know.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Well, so what happens inside the reactor of our
device is we have two electrodespositive, negative electrodes
and then we're trying toestablish a large potential
difference between them, so weform ions.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And then we also have a.
You know, the patent talksabout cutting it off at the
right time, so that most of theionization actually is just an
electron stream rather than apathway of ions.
So we never form an electricalpathway, because that would form
then an arc.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
That would be an arc.
I was going to say it soundslike the text sounds like an arc
lighter but, instead of it, itcuts off just before the arc is
formed.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Interesting and the arc is usually that's high
resistance and it's anelectrical pathway, whereas we
maintain it in sort of acapacitor and just generate
those ions, push them on,generate new ions, push them on
and that way.
So the environment is quiteoxidative, gets rid of the
chemical and microbialcontaminants, but we don't form
(37:53):
that electric arc each time.
So we are better with energyefficiency because of that,
hugely better, because you know,we never really expend too much
current.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I understand a little bit more, but I'm still so
fascinated by how not closingthe circuit uses less energy.
I'm going to have todouble-click on that with you
another time because I'm stilltrying to wrap my head around it
.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, we can get back on that, yeah, yeah yeah, no, I
would love to.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I would love to.
I find this sort of being ableto think like this and have you
here talking about thetechnology and I can instantly
see how many how can be appliedin so many different ways to
what you were saying before.
I can imagine that that is canbe quite a painful thing.
(38:49):
Um, if you don't have a crazybig team to be able to explore
and iterate on each of these.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, and then you know, having that crazy big team
means massive expenses, whichneeds to be supported.
Yeah, it's just.
I mean we just need to hit theright market at the right time
to be able to expand to thatlevel.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
All right.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Well, we have to follow up with those water
authorities locally and see ifwe can make some things happen,
because I know there was a lotof interest with the device, so
I'd be so happy to be able tosupport the other thing that we
are having trouble with and thatends up being one of our major
expenses, is all the samplesthat we generate with the water
(39:33):
treatment, especially PFAS, needto be analyzed because we need
to know what happened to PFASbefore and after, and we need to
know that a thousand times tobe analyzed because we need to
know what happened to PFASbefore and after, and we need to
know that a thousand times tobe able to establish the
technology's effectiveness.
And we're finding that both thetime taken to get the results
back and the expenses per sampleare quite high.
(39:54):
And you know there's nocommercial technology for now
that will instantaneously tellus what the PFAS level of,
because there's, like again,thousands of compounds and
there's no single, for example,convenient electrode similar to
a pH meter that can tell usexactly how much PFAS is in the
water.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So what device is currently used to be able to
track this?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, currently LC-MS , hplc, so it's analyzed
completely, yeah, and thenthat's how we know what all the
contaminants are.
And, uh, yeah, that process isquite expensive, as you can
imagine yeah, no, definitely I'm.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Just I wish we had some of that kit here.
It'll happen eventually, but um, yeah, I can imagine that would
help bring sort of the costdown, having like easy,
accessible access to thesepieces of kit.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Um yeah, interesting.
Interestingly, our partnerosmoflow is exploring uh, you
know, using fluoride uh, whichis the f part of pfas and that's
what makes the carbon chainmore stable.
How you know, they're trying totrack those levels to get to
the results faster right.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
So like a, like a heuristic, that's quick and
dirty, so to speak.
But it would probably give youmaybe like a 70 accuracy or
confidence interval or somethingof the likes and I was.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I know I was talking about the non-biodegradable
versus biodegradable nature, andpfas is the non-biodegradable
part of it.
And the other idea to exploreis to see if we can measure
these two components, cod andBOD, and see if a variation in
the sample between these two cantell us what happened to the
(41:36):
PFAS.
So, for example, if we convert90% of the non-biodegradable
part into biodegradable things,that probably means 90 of at
least at least 90 of the pfs wasconverted as well.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So yeah, this is the interesting thing about going
from zero to one is that youhave to kind of make these
things up as you go um which isalways interesting.
Um, is there anything out therefor, like, are there any
standards or anything for pfas?
Or how is there like isostandards that you're comparing
(42:12):
these things to like?
I have to be really curious toknow how you measure and observe
I think so, the lab that we areapproaching now.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
They make their own uh standards uh because, like I
said, it's highly variable andeven the labs just go through,
like I think, 50 compounds.
They don't go through all ofthe 32 000 possibilities, but
the 50 ones are the most common.
Uh, you know they're like,there's like perfluoroactanoic
acid, perfluoroheptanoic acidand a whole range of different
(42:46):
perfluoro names I wonder ifthere's a?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
there's a use case for, like an ai mixed with a
lcms sort of thing to be able totrack and monitor those?
I'll have to have a chat withthe.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah, I'm sure that the first company that comes up
with this you know PFAS trackingtechnology is going to be you
know it's going to be a winnertechnology.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, well, it's just people don't realize how
everywhere it is.
I mean, we were kind oftouching on it before, but I've
come across so many people who,um, who have been doing research
in this field and they'realways so much more um on edge
than most other humans becauseof it um, yeah, like even more
(43:32):
than, uh, any other pollutantthat I'm aware of.
People are like, oh, this iswild, we don't realize how, but
how dangerous this is due to theyou know, things like
bioaccumulation in the liver andall of these other sort of
major organs, I think thekidneys as well.
So it can cause organ failurein humans, which happened quite
a lot with the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
That's how they found out that it was not good for
you, which is wild yeah.
And I think the safe levelskeep dropping with more and more
research.
I think right now the US EPAhas put it at something like
PPTs, like a few parts pertrillion is the safest level of
(44:12):
PFAS.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Oh gosh.
Well, that said, it's stillexciting that this is something
that is being worked on to tryand address that, because it is
only gonna.
The problem is not going away,it's only gonna increase with
the constant dispersal of thesethings and, from what I'm made
aware of and this is this is thefascinating thing about
problems like this is that it'sa systemic issue that is not
(44:36):
just the physical, but it's alsothe regulatory.
So that social structure ofsaying well, you know, if you're
building a couch has to be fireretardant yeah, if you're
building, you know you know thatjoke, you know your.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Your grandparents dealt with lead.
Your parents dealt withasbestos and we're now dealing
with microplastics and pfs andall of these other things.
So hopefully, yeah, we'll getto the point that they're no
longer used and we findsomething new that's helpful and
stop using that as well.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, well, I mean, when I think about it, I feel
like nature has all of thesolutions there, and this is
something we kind of come backto.
Quite a lot is that from abiomimetic perspective or a
bio-based or bio-inspired designperspective.
There's probably all of thesethings out there and we just
need to learn how to see thesesolutions that nature has come
(45:30):
up with and learn how to workwith those living systems to be
able to bring them into fruitionin our current ways of doing.
But a lot of our current waysof doing where you know I know
that a lot of our current waysof doing where you know I know a
lot of people talk to it aslike the heat, beat and treat
sort of economy.
You know that's kind of how we,how we work with things, rather
than a circular bio-based one.
But I do feel like you know whatyou're doing is a is a great
(45:54):
idea or a great way of showinghow you can have something
that's that's technical and, youknow, using the technical
nutrient cycle to be able tobreak these sort of things down,
and then you can still marrythat up with the biological
cycle and maybe eventually wecan start going okay, cool, to
replace pfas.
We could use these sort ofcoatings that plants use to
create a waxy outer layer, whichcould then be more flame
(46:16):
retardant, or you know.
So I feel like there is goingto be solutions there that are
just latent, that we will findout because we have to.
But yeah, I do hope that theregulation comes around to this
because, from what I can tell,still there hasn't been any
cracking down on it like whatwe've had with like oh this is
BPA free, this is that free.
(46:37):
I don't think there has beenany crackdown on the use.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
It's still a fairly new contaminant to the world.
I think the us has uh gotten tothe point that it's recognized
the dangers of it, but also theus is where a lot of the
manufacturing of this hashappened over the last 50 years
or more.
And I think if you look ataustralia's pfas tracking, it
(47:01):
still talks about we don't, Imean there's not enough
substantiated research thatshows exactly how contaminated
you know harmful it is, atexactly what levels.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
So get there this is a pattern and a process that you
see popping up all the time.
It's the same with climatechange.
It's like, oh, you know, a bitmore evidence would be useful,
and then that then is used as atactic to then delay having to
do any changes that aresignificant and it might cost it
is understandable in the sensethat these things are tough to
change quickly until there'ssolid alternatives that are also
(47:34):
commercially viable and youknow work better and prove to be
better.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
It's just tough to systematically change it across
every use case.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
As you said, it's like the physical, there's the
social, there's the cultural,there's the behavioral.
There's so many differentlayers that will need to be, I
guess, systematically addressedto be able to make that change
happen.
Systematically addressed to beable to make that change happen.
Um so, in an ideal world, howwould you, how would you bring a
(48:09):
portfolio like pureflow to life?
So maybe, if you could talk usthrough so you've got the
wastewater treatment side ofthings, then you've got a device
up here, like, like what wouldbe the ideal office building
that has everything integrated.
Like what could that look like?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (48:24):
well, I've thought about this, I mean, I mean
because of the versatility.
I've always thought of it likea technology that could be used,
uh, completely inside anenvironment, uh, like a yacht,
for example, where it's sort ofindependent of the rest of the
world.
It has its own systems and wecould potentially integrate into
(48:46):
every part of it, starting from, you know, cleaning the air,
cleaning the water being part ofthe food preservation system to
make sure the produce lastslonger, or even sterilizing
surfaces.
So, across the board, in anenvironment like that, would be
really great for us.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
I feel like this is you just being like I kind of
want a yacht and I want to finda way to put it on a business
expense.
But hey, that's cool BecauseI've obviously thought about how
that could happen.
It's exciting to hear that youactually have sort of thought
about this as a process.
That is a research projectwaiting to happen.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
I wonder if we could convince, like csiro or one of
the groups that have the, themarine ships or something like
that I think as we develop uh,hopefully as we develop over the
next 20 years or so each ofthese technologies into their
maximum potential, hopefullythey'll find their fit into the
(49:46):
markets, and I mean personally.
I've been always passionateabout helping all of the
environment really to be cleaner, be safer for us, but also not
hurt the ecosystems that alreadyexist, and I would be.
One of the reasons that I'vestuck with this technology and
(50:07):
with Pureflow for this long isto see some of this out there,
some of the work that I'vecontributed into making the
world around us at least a bitbetter, and I would love to see
some of our products out there.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah, I think that's what I love about so many of the
projects that are happening inour space is that you can really
feel like the tangible elementof every individual person's I
guess own vision and mission forhow they want to show up in the
world, but also the product andthe organization that they're
relating to.
And everyone is coming in andgoing exactly to that point,
(50:43):
like I just want to find a wayto contribute to helping make
the world a slightly betterplace or at least less bad.
And again, it's always withthis leaning towards supporting
social or environmental causes.
And a lot more we're seeing nowis that it's moving away from
that human-centered designtowards more planet-centric
(51:04):
design or likeecosystem-centered design on how
can we support life as a wholeso that it can thrive, and
devices like this, I think.
Yeah, sure, we've kind of spokento the negative impacts on
humans for the most part, butthere's so much in terms of how
this could impact the rest ofthe ecosystem that you know you
(51:24):
know we're saying it's underresearch with humans I don't
think anyone would have done anyresearch on how the rest of the
animal kingdom, let aloneinsects and all these other
things, would probably um dealwith this sort of thing.
But it's kind of like you couldsay, from a quick and dirty
perspective, if it's negative toone form of life, it's probably
going to be negativelyimpacting multiple other forms
(51:45):
of life, because we all run offsimilar patterns and processes.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, exactly just like bleach is bad for bacteria,
it's also bad for us, exactlythe same yeah, so uh, I, uh, I
hope that we see this sort oftech take off.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Is there anything else that you would like to
share with us about Pureflow orabout yourself?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Can't particularly think of anything.
But yeah, I've really enjoyedworking in the Coal Labs
environment the past three, fouryears and I hope you guys
expand more and bring in morenew startups to the Australian
business ecosystem and I hope wecan be part of the journey with
you together.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Definitely We'll have to look at getting you some.
Once we get them up to a goodTRO, we'll have to pilot them in
the CoLabs spaces.
Yeah.
So let us know if that'ssomething that could potentially
happen, because we'd love tolove to support however we can
absolutely awesome.
Well, thanks so much forcarving out some time for a chat
.
Apologies about the uh, theinitial kerfuffle we recorded
(52:50):
for a good 15 minutes and it wasa cracker of a conversation, um
, and it turned out that it wasnot recording.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
I think we did all right the second time around
yeah, yeah, we've made it work,so that's was not recording.
I think we did it all right thesecond time around.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
We've made it work, so that's the main thing.
Awesome.
And so where could people goonline to find out about
Pureflow?
Is there like a?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Well, we have the website pureflowcom and we're
listed on the ASX as well, so wehave regular announcements that
people can follow, and thewebsite gets updated regularly
as well.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
So awesome and for yourself like it.
How can people find you and getin contact like?
I know that you have a wealthof knowledge in this space, um
with like the, the wastewatertreatment by aerosol testing and
all this sort of stuff, and Iknow that you're um open to
supporting people.
Is there anywhere that's goodfor people to get in contact
with you?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Well, the website email will get to me as well.
So info at pureflowcom I thinkis the website and my personal
email as well is vignes atpureflowcom.
Vignes at pureflowcom.
I'm happy to receive anymessages.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, because you've been really helpful in helping a
lot of other people withsimilar sort of projects in our
space.
And, um, yeah, I know thatthat's a, that's an offering
that you can kind of do as wellfor others, so just thought we'd
give that a cheeky plug as wellyeah sure happy to perfect all
right.
Thanks so much, and uh lookforward to our next conversation
.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Yeah me too perfect.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Thanks for tuning in again for another episode of the
strange attractor.
We hope you enjoyed thisconversation with vignesh and we
look forward to seeing you heresometime soon.
Uh yeah, if you like what we'redoing, drop us a line, come and
say g'day.
We'd love to hear from you.
Um, everything we do is aboutsupporting the community and
(54:42):
trying to make space for thebright minds and warm hearts as
jason fox would say to cometogether to collectively
coordinate and come intocoherence around what matters
most.
So if that sounds like you, youknow what to do, and I guess
(55:03):
what to do is come and hang outat CoLabs.
Come and hang out at CoLabs.
Anyway, that's me done.
Hello and welcome to the Strange Attractor, an
experimental podcast from CoLabs, a transdisciplinary innovation
hub and biotechnologyco-working lab based in
Melbourne, australia.
I'm your co-host, sam Wines,and alongside my co-founder,
andrew Gray, we'll delve deepinto the intersection of biology
, technology and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovation,informed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes, couldhelp us catalyze a transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Stranger Tractor.
(00:45):
This week we caught up with oneof our oldest members not
oldest age-wise, but ones who'vebeen around with us for the
longest Vignesh from Pureflow bytraining, but has picked up
(01:06):
quite a bit of knowledge in thebiological chemistry, physics
sort of space through thecreation of this device, which
makes for an interestingconversation that spans multiple
different topics and domains,which is always exciting.
Oh, and a couple of from Colabside of things.
We oh my gosh, it's almostfinished three months until our
(01:30):
Furniture Business Park site isoperational, so we've just been
watching, I think this week theslab is getting poured for the
mezzanine level, so that will be, yeah, available for lease
pretty soon.
So there'll be 660 squaremeters of lab space.
There's four lab pods of 100square which can be joined
(01:52):
together, as well as our, Ithink, 55 lab benches that can
be leased by the bench in theco-working lab space.
It's going to be pretty awesome.
The thing is going to be builtwith sort of biophilic,
biomimetic design andarchitecture we're looking at
using some nice timber finishes,some spotted gum.
(02:14):
We'll probably try and squeezesome biomaterials in there as
well.
We've been chatting with someof the folks at zeoform and
maybe even Funky Solutions, gosh, biomason.
There's a whole bunch of peopledoing biomaterials for the
built environment and we'regoing to see if there's any way
we can squeeze them into thisproject, which would be really,
(02:37):
really awesome.
So yeah, if you're working on animpact-oriented innovation that
is, bio-led, bio-inspired,bio-based bio-anything, really
let us know.
We'd love to find a way to beable to support you.
If you're doing anythingclimate tech-related, anything
deep tech-related, looking intothe material palette of the
(02:58):
future, looking to try and findmore ways in which we can close
the loop on our linear materialseconomy, you name it If it's a
systemic intervention, thenyou've got my attention.
Oh gosh, is that a dad joke?
I guess it kind of is.
Anyway, let's wrap it here, wrapthe intro at least.
(03:18):
Anyway, somewhat annoyingly, weunintentionally did not record
the start of this conversation,which was painful figuring it
out 15 minutes later.
So, yeah, apologies on ourfront.
Let's just say recording,videoing and doing all the
(03:40):
things as a one-person team isnot as easy as I first thought,
but hey, we got there eventually.
Okay, take two, vignesh, thanksso much for joining us here.
For the Strange AttractorYou've actually been one of our
longest running members at Colaband also the first member that
(04:01):
we've had someone reach out andsay, oh, can you please do a
podcast with them?
We really want to learn moreabout, um, the device and we
heard that it might be able tobe used to treat PFAS in water.
So yeah, it's fascinating, um,just seeing how much people will
talk about these sorts ofthings, just even through our
little network, because we haveno idea how people knew about,
(04:23):
knew about that because you weresaying it hasn't even
necessarily been announced, likesort of publicly.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, it is on.
We are a listed company on theASX and we do make regular
announcements and I think thePFAS has been on many
announcements over the past year.
So it is out there, but I don'tknow.
I am curious to know.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, me too.
Whoever it was, feel free toreach out and let us know,
because it was all anonymized.
I was like oh, this is exciting.
Anyway, could you give us alittle bit of a background about
your personal journey and thenhow that led into working at
Pureflow and then how you, withPureflow, have ended up working
here at CoLabs?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Sure.
So I am originally from Indiaand I did my bachelor's there in
mechanical engineering, andthen I've always been attracted
to innovative technologiesrather than working in a large
company and doing a tiny thingthat gets reflected only after
five years after you've done thework, and so I ended up in the
(05:25):
US doing my master's there, andfrom there I was working for a
company in Michigan calledSomnio Global and I helped to
write the patent for atechnology that we are calling
the free radical generator,which is the core for the
Pureflow products.
(05:45):
And so the FRG technology wasquite interesting to me right
from the beginning, right out ofschool really, and it was my
first job professionally andI've had a lot of fun finding
the different applications forit, which you know have been
quite varied, ranging from watertreatment, air treatment,
(06:08):
surface sterilization, even foodpreservation.
You know we can get rid offood-ripening hormones and
increase shelf life.
So yeah, I've really enjoyed mytime with both Somnio and
Pureflow, you know, exploringall the different applications
of the technology.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Just to clarify.
So the free radical generatorcreates a cool plasma, right?
Could you speak to that and howit's different to a hot plasma?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Sure, sure, sure, Okay, the cold plasma.
So yeah, the FIG is a coldplasma generator, which means
that we create an ionizedenvironment in a controlled
manner.
A hot plasma is like on the sun, where just the temperatures
convert matter into its fourthstate, not solid, not liquid,
not gas, but plasma.
(06:58):
And cold plasma is a similarstate that we achieve via
electricity, high voltage ratherthan temperature, and so our
technology is good at doing thatand maintaining it and doing it
at high energy efficiency.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's also quite robust and can handle high
humidities, high and lowtemperatures and so on, which
makes it quite versatile andopens up all of these
applications that I justmentioned yeah, so, and when you
came to us, so that was duringcovid, so you're one of you're
exempt from, I guess, stoppingdoing work and innovation,
(07:35):
because you were one of those.
Let's say, one of thatportfolio of potential solutions
that you could do was actuallyremoving airborne pathogens, yes
, so yeah, maybe you could speakto how we ended up sort of
working together at CoLabs onthat.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Sure, so yeah, we do have the.
So the CoLabs technology.
When you pass ambient airthrough it, it can destroy
microbes, including viruses suchas the COVID, and we wanted to
test that and get some resultson it, and we were looking for a
lab space to do that moreeasily rather than setting up
our own separate space here.
(08:13):
And I think you guys were theonly ones who were offering
something like that and luckilyyou were in Melbourne, close to
us, so we ended up.
You know, it was meant to be.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, no, it was great it was.
It was really fun just whenthings like that pop up.
So we obviously had yourselfcome to us.
Um, then we were at that timewe also had, I think, john from
raditech working on rapidantigen tests.
Um, there was some engineeringgroups that we were helping look
at exploring ways to create 3Dprint masks to be able to
(08:44):
provide to hospitals, as well asSteriBright, which is now
Brightspace, which is anothercompany looking at doing, I
guess, air purificationtechnology through a HVAC system
, which it turns out there mightactually be a little bit of a
collaboration there that youguys are looking at working on.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, we explored the possibility.
We found that adding the FIG tothe air purification process
there that you guys are lookingat working on yeah, we explored
the possibility.
We found that adding the FRG tothe air purification process in
general with any HEPA-based airpurifier increased the pace at
which microbes were removed in aroom.
So, yeah, we are stillexploring that possibility.
Let's wait and see, although wehave found that the market for
(09:26):
air purifiers has sort of cooleddown post-COVID.
Nobody wants to talk about, youknow, germs anymore.
They're sick of, you know, justhaving the same conversation.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So we might pick it up again in a bit, but I think
that's also what's fascinatingabout this portfolio approach,
of knowing that a device can beapplied in multiple different
contexts and, in a way, havingsomething prepared in a shelf
you're like, okay, cool, we'vegot that to like TRL 3 or 4.
We know that we could push downon this and probably raise
funds based on that, but it'salso thinking what's the most
(09:57):
appropriate use case now?
And just to bring it back tosomething that we were sort of
saying at the start, I know thatone of the most interesting
potential use cases that we'relooking at with the Pureflow
device is potential treatment ofwastewater to potentially
remove PFAS.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So PFAS, to just give you anintroduction of what it is, it's
poly and perfluoro acids, knowacids uh, octanoic sulfanoic
acids and uh.
It's a family of compounds.
It's I think the list goes totens of thousands of similar
(10:36):
compounds.
I think at least 32 000 orsomething like that oh gosh and
uh, it's basically the chemicalsthat that are usually used in
firefighting form and also inapplications such as household,
you know, non-stick pans andthings like that.
Because, well, the reason thatthey came up with it was, you
know, it was a cool chemicalthat couldn't be easily degraded
(10:58):
in the environments.
That that's great, but also itcan't easily be degraded in the
environment, which is now aproblem after it's been
discovered to be carcinogenic,and also it apparently follows
the life cycle of animalsthrough the ecosystem.
It goes to.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Bioaccumulates into like the apex predators.
Yeah, all the way.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So it goes from the water to the plants, to the
animals, ends up in us as well,so even the fish, everything and
more and more.
I think countries around theglobe are finding PFAS,
contaminated water sources andsoil as well.
You know australia had a caseof I think I forgot the exact
numbers, but large areas of landthat are contaminated with PFAS
(11:43):
.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, especially because of all the bushfires and
when we're dropping them downthe foam is completely filled
with this stuff which, yeah, asyou were saying, it turns out is
toxic to life, which should notreally come as a surprise given
the fact that it's not existentin nature.
But I guess this is the thingwhen people don't take like a
(12:05):
green chemistry based approach,or don't think what's the second
, third, and thought ofconsequences of of chemical x,
um, which, yeah, obviously canpose a bit of a problem.
But I guess, even then,thinking about that sort of that
, that approach, um, how do wehave you been running tests to
see like, okay, cool, so thiscan break down pfas, but how do
(12:28):
we know that it's breaking itdown into something that's not
just like the equivalent of aplastic being broken down to a
microplastic, into a nanoplastic, which is still bad for you?
is is there does it look likethe?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
the preliminary reports are looking good in
terms of what it's broken downinto, yeah, that's interesting
because one of the common uhproblems with uh advanced
oxidation process, which iswhich is basically when you
produce hydroxyl radicals inwater, either by a combination
of ozone or hydrogen peroxide oruv light or something like that
a problem they've observed withPFAS destruction commonly is
(13:02):
that longer chained compoundsend up breaking into potentially
more harmful and more resistantto degradation, shorter chained
compounds, but with our testingwe found that that's quite low.
Whenever it does exist.
We've not found a lot of caseswhere, for example, an eight
(13:25):
carbon chain longer PFAScompound breaks down into a six
carbon PFAS compound.
So hopefully we do have asolution there.
It is different from otheradvanced oxidation processes,
and currently what's theaccepted, I guess, standard in
the industry is to either juststore the water until we find
(13:47):
another solution, or to run itthrough activated carbon, which
captures around 90% when it'sfresh, and then eventually it's
going to get saturated and thenyou incinerate all of that
carbon.
Or there are newer methodscoming around now, but we
believe that we have atechnology that's quite close to
(14:08):
commercialization and that'salso standing out in terms of
energy consumption.
We think that our process isquite efficient in terms of
energy consumption because ofthe core technology that we have
, and now we're in the processof running repeated tests to
prove that we can do this.
And then we have a partner inAdelaide called Osmoflow, and
(14:33):
they are a reverse osmosiscompany and the collaboration is
based around the concept ofwell, let's go through a reverse
osmosis cycle from the sourcewater to concentrate the
contaminants, including PFAS,and then run it through the flow
system and get rid of that PFAS.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So we are working towards a commercial solution
based on this and so obviously,I was very excited by this as
soon as I found out about it andspoke to quite a lot, quite a
lot of people in our network, soI'm sure you're familiar with
uh, the regen melbourne crew andhow one of their sort of key
goals is to make the birrarungriver swimmable, um, and so
(15:13):
naturally, um, you know thissort of technology is a
fascinating concept to be ableto help treat all of the uh the
rivers systems which have a lotof pollutants in them.
Is there anything?
So I know that we made somepotential introductions.
I don't necessarily want toname LCAs or water authorities,
but you know we did have someinitial discussions there.
(15:35):
Have they picked up or is thereany potential field testing
that might be happening?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
There is some potential field testing that's
happening via our partners, uh,you know, the osmo flow has a
few connections with southaustralian uh councils and they
have a plant running in the us,in new mexico, which we want to
potentially collaborate oninstalling a pilot.
So there is uh, there is worktowards that.
(16:03):
Nothing.
Nothing has happened here yet,I guess because we don't have
commercial technology yet.
We don't have the product yet Ithink people will get more
excited once we get to thatstage.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see how,
because of the nature of how thedevice works, it has to be in
very close proximity to breakdown the pfas.
Am I correct?
Like it's not like you could umkind of shine it like a
flashlight on water or on soilto treat it?
You would need to be yeah, wedon't.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Uh, so there is.
I mean, what you're talkingabout is exposing the water
directly to cold plasma, whichis also something we are
exploring, but it's not at a TRLthat's high enough to be
commercial.
So what we have been successfulat is extracting the gases from
the device, even if it'srunning with ambient air, and
(16:56):
then mix that with water to getgood results as well, so that's
something that's more commonlyused.
It's been around for hundreds ofyears already now maybe not
hundreds, maybe quite a fewyears.
Definitely, where gases havebeen mixed with water,
particularly ozone has beenmixed with water at least for 80
years.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, because that's how the wastewater treatment
plants use a similar sort oftechnology right.
Yeah, they do.
Yeah, okay, it would beinteresting to know whether or
not there is any like biologicalum collaboration, like, is
there a bio-led technology or um, literally just a microorganism
that you could partner withdownstream to process some of
(17:38):
what's left over as a foodsource?
I'd be curious to know have youdelved into or looked into
whether or not that's apotential possibility?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, believe it or not, it actually definitely
exists already with wastewatertreatment.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So there are certain I mean water has everything all
kinds of contamination.
There's some kinds ofcontamination that are
biodegradable and some that arenot and some that are not.
So the contamination that's inthe water, it's gauged by a
metric called chemical oxygendemand, which is basically the
(18:17):
amount of oxygen that would berequired to completely oxidize
all the chemicals down to carbondioxide water.
But there's also a biologicaloxygen demand, which talks about
the biodegradable chemical partof that total cod.
And when there is a wastewatersituation where the water has a
lot of biodegradable chemicals,it is usually subjected to a
(18:39):
membrane bioreactor or abioreactor of some sort where,
you know, bacteria interact withthe water and convert a lot of
the complex carbohydrates orother nutrient or contaminant
into simpler or even carbondioxide water level.
So it does happen.
(19:00):
It is part of most sewagetreatment plans okay.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
So is that?
I guess the direction thatyou'd be looking at going for
this is going well.
The sewage treatment plants area really obvious potential
candidate, but is this somethingthat could be factored into
waterways in some way, shape orform?
Like what?
What I guess is the is thevision for being able to, at
least with this part of theportfolio, like what would.
(19:26):
How would you see this playingout ideally in, say, like five
or ten years time?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
what we would want to do is, uh, I mean for the pfas.
For areas where pfas is the mainissue, we would like to provide
a custom, customized solutionand where they can use the
technology to bring the PFASdown to acceptable levels, or
overall with all wastewatertreatment.
What we want to do, like yousaid exactly what you said is
(19:53):
what we want to do is basicallybe a pre-treatment step.
Convert a lot of the nonbiodegradable chemicals, such as
PFAS, into biodegradableversions which then can be
destroyed easily with the MBR orany bioreactor.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
So you studied engineering.
Yes, right, you have a prettygood grip on physics, chemistry
and biology.
Was that self-taught or liketaught in the context of what
you're doing?
How did you, I guess, developor learn these skills?
Was it on the job?
And would you kind of consideryourself or consider this sort
(20:33):
of innovation as being, you know, not just, I guess, an
engineering feat, but maybe alittle bit more
transdisciplinary, right,because you're drawing on?
So many different domains ofknowledge and understanding.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, well, I think because of the experience in the
startup sort of sector, whereeverybody wears all hats at some
point or the other, we had tosort of all of us learn
microbiology and more chemistrythan we're used to, not just
engineering.
So I and I think you know, anytechnology really at the core is
(21:06):
interdisciplinary.
You can't do anything withoutknowing at least a bit about
lots of other things as well.
So, yeah, I think it's anatural process and what is your
like?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
so if you're having to find a way to, let's say,
forage for this information orfigure out what's like, useful,
like, do you?
I'm curious to know what yourprocess is for learning this, do
you just?
Is it a Google situation?
Are you reaching out to likemembers of our network?
Are you reaching out to membersof your network Like?
How does that process unfold?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's a bit of everything I guess you know
pretty pretty much.
Try to learn from whateversources at hand.
Definitely, being able to speakto some of the members in the
network is definitely quiteuseful.
Lets us bridge the gap quite abit.
Especially, we've had a lot ofhelp with the microbiology side
of things because of having somany biotech-related startups
(22:01):
here, and apart from that, justliterature surveys are the first
step to any scientific approach, so that's where we start.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Nice.
Is there any, I guess,significant milestones?
So obviously we're talkingabout the PFAS category.
If we take that step back andlook at it from the platform of
Pureflow as a whole, are thereany significant milestones
coming up for you?
Or yeah, what's the current layof the land?
Like, looking like.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Currently, the focus has been a bit more on the PFAS
side, just because it'ssomething that we believe the
market will take on a bit easier, and we are also exploring food
preservation, using thetechnology to increase shelf
life, and we're exploringpartnerships there.
In terms of milestones, well,just being able to commercialize
(22:55):
the PFAS technologies, the PFASremoval technology, is the
first thing we're looking forcurrently, along with hopefully
getting into the R&D side of thefood preservation, to the point
where we can approach somebodylike a large grocer to extend
the food shelf life of theircrops.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Okay, cool, you know that we have the fridges that we
over in unit 20 to be able tohave we have we done anything?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
yet.
No, I haven't.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Uh, I would love to, though yeah, we should probably
have a chat about that.
That would definitely bepositive.
I'm just hearing, hearing youtalk, talk about that.
I'm like, oh well, we couldprobably yeah no, uh, pilot
testing.
I thought they were being usedby cortical no, so I, oh I don't
think cortical were using oh,you mean the big ones out the
(23:45):
back right, because they are thecommercial ones.
I reckon we could probably getour hands on one of them that
would be awesome yeah, yeah, soit's a bit of a random side note
.
Um, cool, okay, so that'shappening and the food
preservation is happening, socould you speak to?
So I'm assuming that whenyou're saying it?
Um, it breaks down ripeninghormones as ethylene right.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
What so if it's, if it's running in the air um, I'm
assuming you're going to have tobe running at like a fan or
like.
How would the process work inthat application?
It sounds like it's going to besimilar but different.
Right, because you're notpumping the free radicals into a
, into a liquid medium?
Yeah, it's going.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
You're running the air through and filtering it out
yeah, so there's two approachesthat we can take to that, and
the objective really is toextend food life by two methods.
One is by removing ethylene,and that especially applies to
produce that ripens after, afterit's harvested, such as bananas
(24:49):
or avocados.
They ripen afterwards, butthere's many, for example,
berries, that don't ripen butrather, you know, get decay
after right.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So it's not just the ethylene, but you're also saying
we can um potentially remove asubstantial amount of
microorganisms that might beginto break that food down and
decompose it exactly okay, soagain.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So there's two modes of operation, potentially so, in
when, in environments that aregoing to be closed up for a long
time, and just transportation,for example, or cold storage for
several weeks or several months, what we can do is we can have
a small amount of free radicalsescaping into the room from the
(25:37):
device along with treatingeverything that passes through
the device.
And there's an alternativeapproach in, for example, a
walk-in fridge, where we don'twant potential exposure to ozone
.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I was going to say, yeah, how does that work in that
context?
But you've already been into it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We are able to also easily filter out ozone and
other harmful things and in thatcase all the work happens
within the reactor.
So we have increased airflow,so that it recirculates the air
from within the fridge and getsrid of all ambient you know,
everything that's in the air,including ethylene and then
(26:13):
leaves the area quite safe okay,cool.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
What are some of the other applications you?
We've gone through a few,because I just find this
fascinating, because obviouslyyou've been here at the space
for so long and we've beenseeing you come in and working
on certain applications.
I mean, I even was helpingearly on with some of the
testing protocols for theremoval of certain bacteria, so
(26:38):
I know the tech and I'm familiarwith what it looks like in that
form.
We've gone through the PFAS.
We've gone through the foodpreservation.
Is there anything else?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well, yeah, air purification, for sure, again
similar to the food preservationwe can do either engaging it in
a way that it sterilizes thespace slightly with some free
radicals or just filter outeverything.
And we also have a device thatproduces zero ozone, so it's
perfectly safe but still managesto bring down the bacterial
(27:14):
levels, and that was what wewere talking about in the
context of SteriBrightBrightSpace improve the
filtration efficiency without uhproducing any ozone at all.
So that's something we do withthe air and uh, and apart from
that, what we have come up with,which is quite unique, is a
(27:34):
system for treating airconditioning coils, which is
what I think you were helping uswith, yeah, in the beginning.
So, uh, so what that uh does isyou can uh any.
You know, for example, hotelrooms are a big source of cross
infection and uh, we are allfamiliar with the popular
stories that came out of.
You know how hotel rooms werethe cause for australia's uh,
(27:56):
you know, becoming quiteexpansive, and so what we can do
there is, apart from purifyingthe air, we can offer,
potentially, a product that canbe handled by janitors and just
hung on the air conditioningvents and then it runs for
(28:18):
around 10, 15 minutes gets ridof 90 plus percent of microbes
that are usually deposited onthe air conditioning.
Because you know, uh, when inany in any hotel room, uh, the
ac coils are the best place forgerms to hide in, because all of
the air literally getsrecirculated through that
circuit and also a lot of thewater gets condensed there.
(28:40):
So it's very natural for germsto deposit on the ac coils.
And we have a potentialcombination solution of let's
treat your air and let's treatyour air conditioning coil as
well, on a daily basis orwhenever the room is cleaned.
So that's something we've.
I mean, that's again.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's, it's a trl, uh, seven, eight, uh, pretty much
ready to go, but just waitingfor market reception and so when
you say that combination there,um, are you also referring to
the um, because there was alsolike a, a coating that could be
used to help.
So is that an additional thing,um, or you?
(29:21):
Is that something that you werereferring to in that piece
there?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
yeah, that coating was mainly to, uh, improve the
effectiveness, so that, uh, youknow, ac coils can corrode over
time, and not a lot, a lot.
A lot of hotels will replace iton time.
And so this coating wassupposed to just, you know,
remove some of the and justimprove the overall efficiency
of the Pureflow system.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Okay, so it's ancillary.
It's another thing, but itcould potentially fit within the
wider ecosystem.
I guess, that you have of theproduct being applied.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
And apart from all of that, we've also explored
sterilization in terms ofinstruments or hospital
environments.
That's again another majorsource of infection
Hospital-acquired infections isa huge problem across the world
and we've also worked towardseither forming an autoclave-type
(30:19):
device which doesn't use steamor heat but still managed to
sell nice things.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I can imagine, I can.
My head is just going wildthinking about because there's
so much waste plastic wastespecifically that happens in a
lab environment yeah and I'dlove to hear from your
perspective.
Do you think that could thenpotentially mean that you might
be able to use a device likePureflow's device to essentially
(30:48):
sterilize a pipette tip orsomething of the likes and allow
it to be reused?
Or is that device a little bittricky because it's you know
you'd be having to get in andaround and all over, or is that
something that you think is isis feasible?
Um, from, I guess, yourperspective?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
yeah, so there's different uh levels of uh
sterilization that's requiredfor hospitals, typically uh
something that's a surgical tool.
Uh has to have, you know, thebest, uh a surgical tool has to
have the best the minimum numberof germs possible, and really
they don't spare any expense ingetting it to that point.
(31:34):
Hospitals have massive roomswhere there's very specific
processes by which instrumentsget sterilized on a daily basis,
and that includes washing themand then putting them in
packages that allow thesesterilizers to get in, and then
uh so that's how they do it.
I was always wondering, becauseI'm in my mind, I'm like I'm
gonna sterilize it and then wrapit in a package that must then
just contaminate it so thewrapping has to allow for the
(31:55):
sterilant to enter but not thegerms to enter, so it's so it's
like a like, almost like aporous membrane yeah, yeah but
is it paper or is it poly?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
what is the?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
usually a mixture of uh, you know, depending on the
specific sterilization process.
So, for example, if it's heat,then it has to be something that
can tolerate the heat.
If it's oxidizers, again has totolerate oxidizers.
Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Apart from that, there's some toxic chemicals
that are used, like formaldehyde, sometimes, uh I'm just trying
to think what could be like Ican, I can see in my head the,
the use of, like pure flowsdevice to sterilize, coupled
with a bio-based um, uh, let'ssay, petrochemical replacement
for some of that packaging, andI'm wondering, like that would
(32:44):
be a very interesting, I guess,collaboration effort to have a
think about, because this issomething that we think about
almost daily is just, you know,every time there's a single-use
piece of plastic that you'retaking off of this every time
you use the pipette.
So it's like there's all of thisstuff that it feels like it
actually wouldn't be that hardof a design challenge to fix.
But the issue always seems tocome from the side of like, well
(33:08):
, we can't just run that throughan autoclave, cause you'll melt
the plastic, cause it's toohigh a temperature.
So this I would love to know soif you were going to be
sterilizing something multipletimes using this device, would
that actually impact therobustness of a plastic over
(33:28):
time?
So if it was constantly exposedto the free radicals, is that
going to then start to striplayers of the plastic off?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Again, it depends on the type of plastic, like, for
example, there's a lot of uh,the medical instruments or
tubing is can be silicone orsomething like that, that
doesn't really get impacted byour treatment, but if it's like
polyethylene or something, it isgoing to degrade eventually.
But so again, I was talkingabout different levels of
(33:56):
sterilization.
There are certain instrumentsthat uh that are not surgical
tools.
Uh, for example, uh it can bean ultrasound, uh you know the,
the device, or it can besomething that uh used for
colonoscopy or something likethat.
That doesn't have to be ahundred percent sterile, it just
shouldn't uh have you know,pathogens.
(34:18):
Yeah exactly, and there areinstruments out there which are
present, usually in clinicians'offices, that they can pop it
into a quick cycle in sort of amassive autoclave and then use
it for the next patient.
So we have also been exploringan option of that sort.
But, like I said, there's somany different applications that
(34:41):
, uh, you know we get pulled inall these different directions.
So we we're trying to justfocus on a couple of issues at
the moment and see what else themarket says is important yeah,
that I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
To me that makes sense right and I and I think I
can, as I said, I can also seemultiple collaborations popping
up to be able to try and supportthis from a challenge-led
perspective.
I can imagine that you weresaying before, getting that
market interest or market demandis something that you're
currently trying to figure outwith the PFAS, and I can see how
(35:14):
, with this sort of device,looking at doing the medical
device sterilization andtreatment, obviously circularity
and waste is a big thing inthat space and everyone knows it
and people might be willing toexplore it.
So I can imagine or seesomething where, like a whole
group of you know, hospitalscome together and say, yeah,
we're happy to be able to fundthe research, to pilot, see if
(35:36):
this works, because if it does,that helps them be way less bad
in terms of yeah, apart fromwaste as well, you know, energy
consumption is the other massivething, because anything that
you sterilize with steam, you'renot only just increasing the
temperature, you're also boilingwater right which you you know
you're expanding the latent heatof converting all of that
(35:57):
liquid water into a gas and thenusing that to sterilize
something.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So all of that energy is where we think we can do
better.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Right.
So can you actually speak tothat?
Because when my non-physics Ishouldn't say that I'm into
physics, but I'm definitely notas switched on with it as you
are when I hear you say coldplasma, to me the energy
required to get something to acold plasma seems like more than
(36:26):
the energy to get something togo from a liquid to a gas.
Could you explain, I guess,maybe, how you can have those
energy efficiencies andaffordances when which mean that
it actually is better thanturning water into steam,
because I can't quite squarethat in my head, how that would
work.
So I'm really curious to know.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Well, so what happens inside the reactor of our
device is we have two electrodespositive, negative electrodes
and then we're trying toestablish a large potential
difference between them, so weform ions.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And then we also have a.
You know, the patent talksabout cutting it off at the
right time, so that most of theionization actually is just an
electron stream rather than apathway of ions.
So we never form an electricalpathway, because that would form
then an arc.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
That would be an arc.
I was going to say it soundslike the text sounds like an arc
lighter but, instead of it, itcuts off just before the arc is
formed.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Interesting and the arc is usually that's high
resistance and it's anelectrical pathway, whereas we
maintain it in sort of acapacitor and just generate
those ions, push them on,generate new ions, push them on
and that way.
So the environment is quiteoxidative, gets rid of the
chemical and microbialcontaminants, but we don't form
(37:53):
that electric arc each time.
So we are better with energyefficiency because of that,
hugely better, because you know,we never really expend too much
current.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I understand a little bit more, but I'm still so
fascinated by how not closingthe circuit uses less energy.
I'm going to have todouble-click on that with you
another time because I'm stilltrying to wrap my head around it
.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, we can get back on that, yeah, yeah yeah, no, I
would love to.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I would love to.
I find this sort of being ableto think like this and have you
here talking about thetechnology and I can instantly
see how many how can be appliedin so many different ways to
what you were saying before.
I can imagine that that is canbe quite a painful thing.
(38:49):
Um, if you don't have a crazybig team to be able to explore
and iterate on each of these.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, and then you know, having that crazy big team
means massive expenses, whichneeds to be supported.
Yeah, it's just.
I mean we just need to hit theright market at the right time
to be able to expand to thatlevel.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
All right.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Well, we have to follow up with those water
authorities locally and see ifwe can make some things happen,
because I know there was a lotof interest with the device, so
I'd be so happy to be able tosupport the other thing that we
are having trouble with and thatends up being one of our major
expenses, is all the samplesthat we generate with the water
(39:33):
treatment, especially PFAS, needto be analyzed because we need
to know what happened to PFASbefore and after, and we need to
know that a thousand times tobe analyzed because we need to
know what happened to PFASbefore and after, and we need to
know that a thousand times tobe able to establish the
technology's effectiveness.
And we're finding that both thetime taken to get the results
back and the expenses per sampleare quite high.
(39:54):
And you know there's nocommercial technology for now
that will instantaneously tellus what the PFAS level of,
because there's, like again,thousands of compounds and
there's no single, for example,convenient electrode similar to
a pH meter that can tell usexactly how much PFAS is in the
water.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So what device is currently used to be able to
track this?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, currently LC-MS , hplc, so it's analyzed
completely, yeah, and thenthat's how we know what all the
contaminants are.
And, uh, yeah, that process isquite expensive, as you can
imagine yeah, no, definitely I'm.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Just I wish we had some of that kit here.
It'll happen eventually, but um, yeah, I can imagine that would
help bring sort of the costdown, having like easy,
accessible access to thesepieces of kit.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Um yeah, interesting.
Interestingly, our partnerosmoflow is exploring uh, you
know, using fluoride uh, whichis the f part of pfas and that's
what makes the carbon chainmore stable.
How you know, they're trying totrack those levels to get to
the results faster right.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
So like a, like a heuristic, that's quick and
dirty, so to speak.
But it would probably give youmaybe like a 70 accuracy or
confidence interval or somethingof the likes and I was.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I know I was talking about the non-biodegradable
versus biodegradable nature, andpfas is the non-biodegradable
part of it.
And the other idea to exploreis to see if we can measure
these two components, cod andBOD, and see if a variation in
the sample between these two cantell us what happened to the
(41:36):
PFAS.
So, for example, if we convert90% of the non-biodegradable
part into biodegradable things,that probably means 90 of at
least at least 90 of the pfs wasconverted as well.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So yeah, this is the interesting thing about going
from zero to one is that youhave to kind of make these
things up as you go um which isalways interesting.
Um, is there anything out therefor, like, are there any
standards or anything for pfas?
Or how is there like isostandards that you're comparing
(42:12):
these things to like?
I have to be really curious toknow how you measure and observe
I think so, the lab that we areapproaching now.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
They make their own uh standards uh because, like I
said, it's highly variable andeven the labs just go through,
like I think, 50 compounds.
They don't go through all ofthe 32 000 possibilities, but
the 50 ones are the most common.
Uh, you know they're like,there's like perfluoroactanoic
acid, perfluoroheptanoic acidand a whole range of different
(42:46):
perfluoro names I wonder ifthere's a?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
there's a use case for, like an ai mixed with a
lcms sort of thing to be able totrack and monitor those?
I'll have to have a chat withthe.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah, I'm sure that the first company that comes up
with this you know PFAS trackingtechnology is going to be you
know it's going to be a winnertechnology.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, well, it's just people don't realize how
everywhere it is.
I mean, we were kind oftouching on it before, but I've
come across so many people who,um, who have been doing research
in this field and they'realways so much more um on edge
than most other humans becauseof it um, yeah, like even more
(43:32):
than, uh, any other pollutantthat I'm aware of.
People are like, oh, this iswild, we don't realize how, but
how dangerous this is due to theyou know, things like
bioaccumulation in the liver andall of these other sort of
major organs, I think thekidneys as well.
So it can cause organ failurein humans, which happened quite
a lot with the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
That's how they found out that it was not good for
you, which is wild yeah.
And I think the safe levelskeep dropping with more and more
research.
I think right now the US EPAhas put it at something like
PPTs, like a few parts pertrillion is the safest level of
(44:12):
PFAS.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Oh gosh.
Well, that said, it's stillexciting that this is something
that is being worked on to tryand address that, because it is
only gonna.
The problem is not going away,it's only gonna increase with
the constant dispersal of thesethings and, from what I'm made
aware of and this is this is thefascinating thing about
problems like this is that it'sa systemic issue that is not
(44:36):
just the physical, but it's alsothe regulatory.
So that social structure ofsaying well, you know, if you're
building a couch has to be fireretardant yeah, if you're
building, you know you know thatjoke, you know your.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Your grandparents dealt with lead.
Your parents dealt withasbestos and we're now dealing
with microplastics and pfs andall of these other things.
So hopefully, yeah, we'll getto the point that they're no
longer used and we findsomething new that's helpful and
stop using that as well.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, well, I mean, when I think about it, I feel
like nature has all of thesolutions there, and this is
something we kind of come backto.
Quite a lot is that from abiomimetic perspective or a
bio-based or bio-inspired designperspective.
There's probably all of thesethings out there and we just
need to learn how to see thesesolutions that nature has come
(45:30):
up with and learn how to workwith those living systems to be
able to bring them into fruitionin our current ways of doing.
But a lot of our current waysof doing where you know I know
that a lot of our current waysof doing where you know I know a
lot of people talk to it aslike the heat, beat and treat
sort of economy.
You know that's kind of how we,how we work with things, rather
than a circular bio-based one.
But I do feel like you know whatyou're doing is a is a great
(45:54):
idea or a great way of showinghow you can have something
that's that's technical and, youknow, using the technical
nutrient cycle to be able tobreak these sort of things down,
and then you can still marrythat up with the biological
cycle and maybe eventually wecan start going okay, cool, to
replace pfas.
We could use these sort ofcoatings that plants use to
create a waxy outer layer, whichcould then be more flame
(46:16):
retardant, or you know.
So I feel like there is goingto be solutions there that are
just latent, that we will findout because we have to.
But yeah, I do hope that theregulation comes around to this
because, from what I can tell,still there hasn't been any
cracking down on it like whatwe've had with like oh this is
BPA free, this is that free.
(46:37):
I don't think there has beenany crackdown on the use.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
It's still a fairly new contaminant to the world.
I think the us has uh gotten tothe point that it's recognized
the dangers of it, but also theus is where a lot of the
manufacturing of this hashappened over the last 50 years
or more.
And I think if you look ataustralia's pfas tracking, it
(47:01):
still talks about we don't, Imean there's not enough
substantiated research thatshows exactly how contaminated
you know harmful it is, atexactly what levels.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
So get there this is a pattern and a process that you
see popping up all the time.
It's the same with climatechange.
It's like, oh, you know, a bitmore evidence would be useful,
and then that then is used as atactic to then delay having to
do any changes that aresignificant and it might cost it
is understandable in the sensethat these things are tough to
change quickly until there'ssolid alternatives that are also
(47:34):
commercially viable and youknow work better and prove to be
better.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
It's just tough to systematically change it across
every use case.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
As you said, it's like the physical, there's the
social, there's the cultural,there's the behavioral.
There's so many differentlayers that will need to be, I
guess, systematically addressedto be able to make that change
happen.
Systematically addressed to beable to make that change happen.
Um so, in an ideal world, howwould you, how would you bring a
(48:09):
portfolio like pureflow to life?
So maybe, if you could talk usthrough so you've got the
wastewater treatment side ofthings, then you've got a device
up here, like, like what wouldbe the ideal office building
that has everything integrated.
Like what could that look like?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (48:24):
well, I've thought about this, I mean, I mean
because of the versatility.
I've always thought of it likea technology that could be used,
uh, completely inside anenvironment, uh, like a yacht,
for example, where it's sort ofindependent of the rest of the
world.
It has its own systems and wecould potentially integrate into
(48:46):
every part of it, starting from, you know, cleaning the air,
cleaning the water being part ofthe food preservation system to
make sure the produce lastslonger, or even sterilizing
surfaces.
So, across the board, in anenvironment like that, would be
really great for us.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
I feel like this is you just being like I kind of
want a yacht and I want to finda way to put it on a business
expense.
But hey, that's cool BecauseI've obviously thought about how
that could happen.
It's exciting to hear that youactually have sort of thought
about this as a process.
That is a research projectwaiting to happen.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
I wonder if we could convince, like csiro or one of
the groups that have the, themarine ships or something like
that I think as we develop uh,hopefully as we develop over the
next 20 years or so each ofthese technologies into their
maximum potential, hopefullythey'll find their fit into the
(49:46):
markets, and I mean personally.
I've been always passionateabout helping all of the
environment really to be cleaner, be safer for us, but also not
hurt the ecosystems that alreadyexist, and I would be.
One of the reasons that I'vestuck with this technology and
(50:07):
with Pureflow for this long isto see some of this out there,
some of the work that I'vecontributed into making the
world around us at least a bitbetter, and I would love to see
some of our products out there.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah, I think that's what I love about so many of the
projects that are happening inour space is that you can really
feel like the tangible elementof every individual person's I
guess own vision and mission forhow they want to show up in the
world, but also the product andthe organization that they're
relating to.
And everyone is coming in andgoing exactly to that point,
(50:43):
like I just want to find a wayto contribute to helping make
the world a slightly betterplace or at least less bad.
And again, it's always withthis leaning towards supporting
social or environmental causes.
And a lot more we're seeing nowis that it's moving away from
that human-centered designtowards more planet-centric
(51:04):
design or likeecosystem-centered design on how
can we support life as a wholeso that it can thrive, and
devices like this, I think.
Yeah, sure, we've kind of spokento the negative impacts on
humans for the most part, butthere's so much in terms of how
this could impact the rest ofthe ecosystem that you know you
(51:24):
know we're saying it's underresearch with humans I don't
think anyone would have done anyresearch on how the rest of the
animal kingdom, let aloneinsects and all these other
things, would probably um dealwith this sort of thing.
But it's kind of like you couldsay, from a quick and dirty
perspective, if it's negative toone form of life, it's probably
going to be negativelyimpacting multiple other forms
(51:45):
of life, because we all run offsimilar patterns and processes.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, exactly just like bleach is bad for bacteria,
it's also bad for us, exactlythe same yeah, so uh, I, uh, I
hope that we see this sort oftech take off.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Is there anything else that you would like to
share with us about Pureflow orabout yourself?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Can't particularly think of anything.
But yeah, I've really enjoyedworking in the Coal Labs
environment the past three, fouryears and I hope you guys
expand more and bring in morenew startups to the Australian
business ecosystem and I hope wecan be part of the journey with
you together.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Definitely We'll have to look at getting you some.
Once we get them up to a goodTRO, we'll have to pilot them in
the CoLabs spaces.
Yeah.
So let us know if that'ssomething that could potentially
happen, because we'd love tolove to support however we can
absolutely awesome.
Well, thanks so much forcarving out some time for a chat
.
Apologies about the uh, theinitial kerfuffle we recorded
(52:50):
for a good 15 minutes and it wasa cracker of a conversation, um
, and it turned out that it wasnot recording.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
I think we did all right the second time around
yeah, yeah, we've made it work,so that's was not recording.
I think we did it all right thesecond time around.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
We've made it work, so that's the main thing.
Awesome.
And so where could people goonline to find out about
Pureflow?
Is there like a?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Well, we have the website pureflowcom and we're
listed on the ASX as well, so wehave regular announcements that
people can follow, and thewebsite gets updated regularly
as well.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
So awesome and for yourself like it.
How can people find you and getin contact like?
I know that you have a wealthof knowledge in this space, um
with like the, the wastewatertreatment by aerosol testing and
all this sort of stuff, and Iknow that you're um open to
supporting people.
Is there anywhere that's goodfor people to get in contact
with you?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Well, the website email will get to me as well.
So info at pureflowcom I thinkis the website and my personal
email as well is vignes atpureflowcom.
Vignes at pureflowcom.
I'm happy to receive anymessages.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, because you've been really helpful in helping a
lot of other people withsimilar sort of projects in our
space.
And, um, yeah, I know thatthat's a, that's an offering
that you can kind of do as wellfor others, so just thought we'd
give that a cheeky plug as wellyeah sure happy to perfect all
right.
Thanks so much, and uh lookforward to our next conversation
.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Yeah me too perfect.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Thanks for tuning in again for another episode of the
strange attractor.
We hope you enjoyed thisconversation with vignesh and we
look forward to seeing you heresometime soon.
Uh yeah, if you like what we'redoing, drop us a line, come and
say g'day.
We'd love to hear from you.
Um, everything we do is aboutsupporting the community and
(54:42):
trying to make space for thebright minds and warm hearts as
jason fox would say to cometogether to collectively
coordinate and come intocoherence around what matters
most.
So if that sounds like you, youknow what to do, and I guess
(55:03):
what to do is come and hang outat CoLabs.
Come and hang out at CoLabs.
Anyway, that's me done.
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