Boydel’s Story
Water is one of our most critical resources, and yet we continually deplete the clean water supplies we do have, and then discharge dirty water back to the environment with minimal treatment, or in many cases no treatment at all. The UN considers water scarcity to be one the greatest challenges of our time, and it is currently getting worse, not better. We believe that one of the best solutions is to make effective treatment affordable and easy to install to minimize the pollution we put back into the environment and ensure clean water stays clean.
At Boydel we’re passionate about making it easier for companies and communities to treat their wastewater streams so our kids and future generations have the clean water resources they need to thrive and enjoy life.
The Company was founded in innovation when two entrepreneurs, Randy Boyle and Randy DeLuca, realized that there had to be a better way to treat sewage than the centuries old “bugs and bubbles” of traditional biological treatment plants. They were seeing communities around them either dumping essentially untreated water directly into the environment, because they didn’t have the space or funds to build their own plants, or installing traditional wastewater treatment systems, with high cost and high odor, that still only succeeded in removing some of the contaminants polluting the waterways they were supposed to protect.
The Founders determined that they could do a better job using electro- chemistry instead of biochemical options and in 2009 the WaterMiner® was born and patented. They found their novel process worked even better than expected, treating water in a fraction of the time and space of traditional plants while removing more contaminants, including many of the emerging pollutants that stress environments and water supplies throughout the world. On top of that, they found that they could easily treat waters with high solids content that are considered very challenging to impossible for traditional plants to cost effectively manage.
In 2017 Norman Keevil joined as the companies first new President, bringing important management and engineering expertise, and helping to add Research, Engineering and Project talent to the team to position Boydel for growth.
Our Technology
The core innovation in Boydel’s WaterMiner® system is our dual-zone reactor that combines two electrochemical processes within a single treatment cell. Electrocoagulation and Electrooxidation have each been used successfully to treat wastewater for decades, but when we combined them together, we found each process enhanced the performance of the other, creating a powerful treatment platform where 1 plus 1 ended up being much greater than 2. With total treatment times that are more than 10x faster than competing options, we can make smaller plants that operate at lower costs, making it much easier to find the space and budgets needed for the best available water treatment solution in new or existing wastewater treatment plants.
Like so many new innovations, the WaterMiner® spent thousands of hours in development as we worked with customers, operating at scales from benchtop to full commercial platforms, to refine our systems and processes to be the best option to address their emerging challenges. After a lot of effort from our team, and great support from the Clean Tech community in Southern British Columbia and NRC-IRAP we have developed a truly high performance and low-cost effective way to treat difficult wastewaters that can easily be adopted in almost any wastewater management solution.
The Future
The world is changing quickly, and both industrial and municipal water managers are beginning to take much more proactive measures to reduce their environmental footprint, with water being a major contributor. Community expectations around these issues are increasing and putting pressure on companies and regulators to be continually improving to maintain their license to operate. At Boydel we’re pretty excited to be able to be a part of the solution to this growing challenge.
With engineering, manufacturing, laboratory capabilities in BC, Boydel is ready to take off and 2020 is proving to be a pivotal year for our Company. With new systems being delivered to treat oily waters, selenium in mine tailings and agri-food processing water, we are already starting to make a positive impact on our customers water footprint. We are already seeing success breed success, as other operators are taking notice of what we are doing in their industry and what we can do for them. It is an exciting time to be building clean technology when the World needs positive solutions to our pollution challenges, and Southern BC is one of the great places to be doing it.
