As early as 2012, water disinfection systems using ultraviolet mercury lamps (UV LEDs) in the germicidal or UVC wavelength range were commercially available.
But UVC-LEDs are smaller than traditional UV lamps, have a lower flow rate, and can cost thousands of dollars. At that time, UVC-LED mainly focused on the application of point-of-use (POU), but after several years of development, it has gradually matured, and now it has promoted the development of POE large-flow water treatment.
POE solution has matured
Today, POE solutions for higher water flow have matured, mainly from the following three points:
Reduce costs. As UVC-LED system designs continue to evolve, they mature in terms of design, durability, and most importantly, efficiency and cost, to the point where they eventually compete with existing products in the POE UV disinfection market.
Application of high-power products. Compared with the previous low-to-medium power that is only suitable for POU applications, the current technology in the industry has developed quite differently. For example, Seoul Viosys will apply its "Violeds" UVC technology to water treatment company Typhon Treatment Systems Ltd. in the UK in 2022. In the water purification plant in Cumbria, the daily water purification capacity reaches 30,000 cubic meters. AquiSense installed the first PearlAqua Tera system in a North American municipality, handling flows of up to 2 million gallons per day (mgd) or 7,500 cubic meters per day.
More flexible design. UVC can be custom designed with the flexibility of LEDs and can be easily integrated or installed into existing products. Over time, the UVC-LED's UV light efficiency has been improved, which has also greatly improved the efficiency of the UVC-LED reactor. These advances consolidated LED technology for POUs and began to expand the POE market.
POE mainly focuses on three markets
For the main application market of POE, from the perspective of its technology and current development, the more suitable ones are mainly residential POE units, commercial units, and municipal units.
Residential POE unit. Today, UVC-LED systems have firmly crossed the POE threshold, and the most striking feature of this technology is its ability to treat water for the entire home—not just drinking water, but also water for showers, bathroom faucets, etc. , which also means that the UVC-LED system has a completely feasible alternative to replace the traditional mercury lamp system. Traditional mercury lamps need warm-up time, and they usually need to operate at full power to achieve the sterilization effect. Therefore, users of traditional systems often encounter hot water eruption after a long period of inactivity.
In addition, the five-year LED replacement interval, reduced power consumption, and no need to dispose of waste mercury lamps make the LED solution even more attractive for typical intermittent household water use.
Commercial unit. Because the water flow required in light commercial is not much different from the water flow in residential environment, the characteristics of LED in the above POE application make it also applicable in light commercial. For example: small community centers and arenas, small schools, small offices, fire halls and retail stores, etc., while larger facilities can install multiple POE modules in parallel. At the same time, due to the progress of research and development and market demand, the cost and occupied space of LED systems will continue to decrease in the near future, and LED systems that are more suitable for various commercial applications will be launched.
municipal unit. By nature, municipal water treatment systems have the highest flow rate of all applications. Another consideration here is the typical multi-barrier approach, which often combines UV disinfection with the provision of residual chlorine. When using this approach, the UV power required for all systems is extremely high and will for some time be dominated by conventional mercury lamp technology. However, as mentioned earlier, LED technology for UVC applications is progressing rapidly, and the cost, power, and efficiency are also increasing, so the future trend will gradually reverse, and this trend can be started from the LED disinfection and This is evident in trials of advanced oxidation (AOP) municipal systems.
If only residential and light commercial applications where flow rates are typically in the range of 5 to 15 gpm (20 to 60 lpm) are considered. The market size of this part of POE is estimated to be about 300 million US dollars per year, equivalent to about 300,000 systems worldwide, and the market prospect is broad
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Shenzhen Hechuang Hitech CO., LTD. is a National High-tech Enterprise, which has won a number of invention patent technology awards. We focuses on the Research, Development, Production and Application of UVC-LED Technology. It adopts innovative technologies of revolutionary optics and fluid science, which can kill bacteria and viruses in 0.2 seconds, with a killing rate of 99.9999%. Hechuang Hitech provides safer, more efficient and more humanized sterilization module design for Water Air and Surface Disinfection products.
