Ozonia Takes On Emerging Contaminants

Gaspar Lesznik of Ozonia North America talks to Water Online Radio about issues concerning the water industry, including emerging contaminants and water scarcity, and how Ozonia’s ozone and UV equipment can help.

Todd Schnick:  And we’re coming to you live from Dallas, Texas. This is day two of AWWA ACE 2012 with Water Online Radio. I’m your host Todd Schnick, joined by my colleague, Todd Youngblood. Todd, an old friend is coming back to the show.

Todd Youngblood: That is so cool when you see guests coming up and you’re thinking, “Oh, I remember him, what the heck is his name.” Then it pops right back in. I didn’t remember our guest, actually. I recognized his cohort.

Todd Schnick:  I remembered the colleague – that’s who I recalled from the show – but I want to welcome back Gaspar Lesznik, director with UV and standard ozone products for Ozonia North America. Welcome back, Gaspar.

Gaspar: I’m very happy to be here.

Todd Schnick: Well it’s great to have you. Before we get into it, Gaspar, take a sec and tell us a little bit about you and your background.

Gaspar: Well I’ve been with ozone my entire career. I’ve been with the company for 37-plus years. I was on the commercial side for ozone and UV products and it’s been quite a long and pleasant journey.

Todd Youngblood: Outstanding, well gosh, tell us all about Ozonia North America.

Gaspar: Ozonia is a company that’s based in Leonia, New Jersey, just outside New York City. We have two technology platforms that we focus on – ozone generation equipment and ultraviolet equipment – both for water and wastewater treatment, municipal and industrial.

Todd Youngblood: When you talk about ozone and UV, that’s right in the middle of all the big movements and trends in the industry. Talk a little bit about the trends that you see coming at us the next few years.

Gaspar: The trends that we really see are, obviously, water scarcity is a big problem, and as population is growing we are looking to treat water better and better.

The biggest trends today that we see are the emerging contaminants, micro-pollutants, NDMA, pharmaceutical care products that are emerging in water and we are trying to treat these to make it safer for people to drink and make it safer for the environment.

Todd Schnick: Well those are some obviously very important trends and we are hearing those from a lot of our guests. How is Ozonia in a position to deal with those?

Gaspar: Well with our technologies, the ozone generation is an extremely powerful oxidizing agent and it’s been shown that it could treat roughly 90% of most of these personal care products that are emerging underwater.

The UV side, it’s used for disinfection, but it’s also used largely for wastewater weightless applications so that we can try to conserve our environment the best we can.

Todd Youngblood: Now I know you guys are knee deep also in technology, what beyond ozone and UV are you looking at, any technologies?

Gaspar: What we are doing is we are trying to combine technologies, ozone and ultraviolet, to find synergies with that and perhaps with other catalysts or other reagents to create advanced oxidation, hydroxyl radicals, which are used to again go after these micro-pollutants and with the contaminated groundwater and reuse the water the best we can.

Todd Schnick: Now you just said advanced oxidation, I’m not sure I understand exactly what that is. Enlighten us a little bit.

Gasper: Well I’ll try. Advanced oxidation, it’s not new, it’s been around for 30-plus years, but it’s a very complicated chemical field where what we do is we try to create hydroxyl radicals, which are very short-lived oxidizing agents.

They are the most powerful oxidizing agent available other than elemental fluorine, and we create this in situ to treat the contaminants as rapidly as possible. That can be done with ozone.

It can be done with ultraviolet, in combination, by themselves, or in combination with a catalyst such as hydrogen peroxide or other effective reagents, items like that.

Todd Schnick: ACE 2012, what are your goals here at the show?

Gaspar: Goals here at the show…obviously, to educate people to promote our products, promote our technologies, and to just right now have a very good fine time and try to get as many people as we can to booth 2513.

Todd Youngblood: 2513, I got it.

Todd Schnick: Gaspar, water utilities are not exactly famous for their willingness and ability to adapt to new technologies, learn about new processes, new methodologies. You’ve talked about several things today that are pretty leading edge, technologically. How do you help folks understand what those technologies are and how they can be applied?

Gaspar: We try to educate. One of the advantages that Ozonia has is that we have a very large arm in Europe and in Europe these agents, micro-pollutants which I mentioned earlier are being regulated, and those regulations will come over to the United States. So people are looking forward and seeing that this is coming down the road so they are trying to prepare for them right now.

Todd Youngblood: Let’s shift focus for a sec, up to 10,000 feet and look down on the industry what trends do you see coming down the pipe in the next three to five years?

Gaspar: I see the emerging containments are going to be a major issue and that’s not going to go away, that as well as the scarcity of water and trying to reuse as much as possible and to conserve as much as we can.

Todd Youngblood: Gaspar, I don’t know about you but I’m always interested in money and I have this sneaky feeling that water utilities are interested in saving money as well. What kind of things are Ozonia doing to helping that regard?

Gaspar: Well Ozonia has a very active research and development arm, which is trying to make our products obviously as inexpensive as possible, but much more importantly to make them as economic as possible from an operation standpoint.

So we have the capital side as well as the operating side.  So we are trying to reduce the OPEX as much as possible, use minimum energy, use minimal gases, use minimal chemicals as possible. That way we will be able to help these utilities save their money.

Todd Schnick: Gaspar, I hate to say it but we are out of time. I also want to say that the crowd here has loved what you’ve had to say tonight.

Todd Youngblood: Did you hear all the cheering?

Gaspar: It’s unbelievable. It’s all about the crowd.

Todd Schnick: Gaspar, before I let you go how can people get in touch with you and learn more about Ozonia North America.

Gaspar: Well as I mentioned we are in booth 2513. We would like to have as many people stop by as possible.

Todd Schnick: Alright, Gaspar Lesznik, director UV and standard ozone products, Ozonia North America. It was great seeing you again. Thanks for coming back to the show.

Gaspar: Thank you very much.

Todd Schnick: Alright, well that wraps this segment, on behalf of our guest Gaspar Lesznik, my cohost Todd Youngblood, and all of us here at Water Online. I am Todd Schnick. We will be right back with our next guest.