The Company
The Beginning
Watervap, LLC© was incorporated in November 2004 as a Georgia limited liability corporation initially with three equal partners: Robert Wright, Charles McCain, and David McCain. Later, Robert Bailie and Bert Autrey were brought into the firm as equal partners. These five entrepreneurs would combine their unique resources to develop an economically viable, Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) process addressing the needs of a large number of industries in the United States and abroad. Eight months later Watervap was the winner of the Dow Jones / General Electric ECOnomics Business Plan Award.
Broad Business Strategy
Watervap LLC’s business strategy has four elements.
Business Goal: Watervap’s business goal is to either (a) license the technology to an international company to produce a stream of revenue from site licenses and royalty fees, or (b) sell the company or merge it into a large, multi-national corporation, which has the intent and the resources to further the patent coverage and to aggressively market the technology world-wide. It is Watervap’s intent to operate the business in such a manner as to enhance patent coverage and most effectively demonstrate the technology’s worth to prospects. The time frame to effect the transaction is within three years.
Corporate Ownership: To facilitate and ensure that the acquisition goal above can be most effectively executed, the number of ownership units has been restricted to five.
Business Structure: Given the foregoing elements, Watervap will be operated with an absolute minimum of employees, and no managerial salaries will be paid until the company is consistently profitable. Except for essential managerial functions, virtually all work will be contracted out. No real property will be acquired, nor will any long-term leases be made for real or other property. Similarly, long-term contracts that could impede the Company’s sale will be avoided.
Patent Coverage: Watervap will protect its intellectual property. Watervap has developed a unique Brine Disposal Process (BDS) – a water purification process which reduces salt and other minerals dissolved in water to a dry powder. Optionally, the resultant water vapors can be condensed to achieve fresh water, which has purity virtually equal to distilled water. This process has been described in our U.S. patent filings. One patent covers the BDS technology, which entails the reduction of highly concentrated mineral solutions to dry salts. A second patent application has been filed. The second filing incorporates a proprietary fluidized bed heat exchanger (FBHX system), and this greatly reduces the energy consumption of the overall process. This patent also incorporates a membrane distillation process to be used in cases with low salt concentrations.
The Watervap patented process has wide applicability. It is able to treat concentrates from seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants, oil well production water, oil and gas drilling frac water, many industrial effluents, agricultural wastewater, cooling tower blow-down, and other water solutions infused with dissolved minerals. The result is pure water and dry minerals. Other technologies are either unable to treat them at all, or can only partially do so, or are not economically feasible.