First long-lasting super-oxygenated water to promote post-exercise recovery and plant health, boosting crop yields sustainably

Project Information

OxygeAte

Grant agreement ID: 827453

DOI

10.3030/827453

Project closed

EC signature date 1 August 2018

Start date 1 July 2018

End date 30 September 2018

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

NITOX AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OxygeAte (First long-lasting super-oxygenated water to promote post-exercise recovery and plant health, boosting crop yields sustainably)

Reporting period: 2018-07-01 to 2018-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

NiToX is a Norwegian company created with the vision to build, develop and market innovative water treatment to positively impact society. At the core of our company is our super oxygenation technology to create water supersaturated with oxygen. In the NiToX process, the O2 molecules create a miniscule but stable chemical bond with minerals that are dissolved in the water. This basically means that O2 will remain dissolved in water for 4-6 months and oxygen concentration will be increased from 5mg/l, as in regular tap water, to 160mg/l in OxygenAte water.

Two growing industries have their attention on the super-oxygenation of water: i)the healthy beverage industry is searching for a booster on functional bottled water and ii)the smart farming industry searching for more precise and sustainable irrigation technics for farming. The benefits achived with Oxygenate in these two industries are:
Super-Oxygenated Water (SOatedW) is a specialty consumer product for human health applications mostly unknown for common unhealthy humans, that only drink water and stretch if so after doing exercise (if so). Being athletic, increasing your performance and cutting down post-workout recovery are the most extensively medically verified applications of SOatedW. SOatedW helps the liver clear lactate, the product of fatigued muscles, speeding up recovery.
Super-Oxygenation (SOtion), simply put, enables more food production, richer in nutrients and using less resources. Crops need the Disolved Oxygen (DO) contained in water to survive and thrive. Plant growth increases with super saturation levels of DO, reducing cropping times and increasing fruiting or flowering yields. Several studies using SOtion point out to seasonal yield increase (over 10%), increased yield of early marketable products (13%) and reduced decline of production at end of season (16%). SOtion ultimately tackles one of the main challenges of our time: produce enough food for the growing human population, at the lowest resource use possible

We are focusing on our immediate launch in making it accessible for direct consumption via bottled water and for irrigation to make a healthy and long lifespan. Our aim will be to make our OxygenAte water commercially viable with new prototypes for producing our SOatedW for the bottled water sector and for irrigation purposes. We are confident in our ability to replicate strong evidence of the benefits of SOatedW for both human and plant consumption in order to overcome public doubt. This feasibility study assessed the likelihood of reaching a commercially ready prototype of OxygenAte for use in the bottled water and irrigation sectors and having significant evidence to back up the health and plant growth claims regarding SOatedW. From a commercial standpoint, the assessment explored the supply chain cycle and a strategy to reach potential customers.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

OxygenAte’s technology to create SOatedW has the huge potential to radicalize the health market with benefits to directly improve human health but also plant health to boost growth and eradicate the disease. After 10 years of research and development and €200K in investment, we have arrived at a completely innovative process of dissolving oxygen in the water. By altering the magnetic field of water and irradiating it with oxygen, oxygen is then embedded into the colloid minerals water allowing it to stay dissolved for longer periods even travelling long distances.
We have proved this in our first series of medical tests and farm studies where our OxygenAte water has successfully raised oxygen levels in the blood and water which has supported more robust plant growth. Our first series of medical tests together with Østlandske Hjertesenter shows that OxygenAte water successfully increases the concentration of oxygen in the arterial blood by 22%. In parallel, our farm studies together with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences has shown that plants irrigated with OxygenAte water experience more robust plant growth for 10% higher yields and are better equipped to deal with higher temperatures.
We have applied for national funding for the design and development a new full-scale prototype which will be used for testing and further development of the commercial licencing versions of OxygenAte process machines for water bottlers and our OxygenIrrigAte machine to be integrated into smart irrigation systems. The next step will be to manufacture both prototypes to pilot their function in a commercially relevant environment and ensure their market readiness. Another important part of the commercial success of our technology will be to create strong branding and strengthen the value added to our customers. In order to do this, we have planned additional tests to be completed together with Østlandske Hjertesenter and Norwegian University of Life Sciences to solidify our health claims and benefits for plant growth. Moreover, we have conducted a freedom to operate analysis and developed the strategy to further increase our patent portfolio. Lastly, we have furthered our commercial efforts in finding partners interested in licensing Nitox’s technology once it is market ready, that support our pricing and “willingness to pay” assumptions. We already have interested clients in the pipeline for each of these segments who want to become leaders in offering this new technology, PepsiCo in the bottled water segment and RITEC in the irrigation segment.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We have effectively made superoxygenated water widely available for mass consumption for the first time to radicalize the health market. On one hand, we are creating a new consummer product in the form of a functional bottled water which has the potential to provide holistic benefits to replace some of the medicines over half of us take on a daily basis. In 2015, the global market for functional water grew by 12% from 5,500 million litres of drinks and a total of 10 billion euros in value. While on the other hand consuming crops higher in nutrients and vitamins also gives us health benefits to help reduce the massive quantities of pharmaceuticals entering our environment. Furthermore, irrigating with OxygenAte water will stimulate a high yield low, impact agriculture where farmers are using less fertilizer, fungicides and water to cultivate more crops and generate higher incomes and are simultaneously better prepared for changes with a warming climate. The sales of smart irrigation systems which help provide similar benefits are predicted to grow at 13.1%, reaching €2B by 2026.

We will strive to attain contracts for fixed amounts of production, roughly 3.5 million litres of bottled OxygenAte water annually per bottler-accounting for 4% of the water they currently produce. For the smart irrigation sector, we will aim to work with two smart irrigation providers at the beginning with the aim to sell 50 licenses each around Europe, starting in Spain and Italy. For the bottled water sector, our goal by 2023 will be to establish license agreements with 20 water bottlers (3.3% of all bottlers), starting in the European countries. We anticipate that we will generate roughly €7 million in sales from this channel alone by 2023. For the agricultural segment, our goal by 2023 will be to have acquired 900 licenses with farmers around Europe, 0.26% of the total market of large farmers in Europe, our main target market. By 2023, revenue generated from this stream will represent a significant part of our income (€12m).

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