Making Earth Green Again with Liquid Nano Clay

Project Information

LNC

Grant agreement ID: 876908

DOI

10.3030/876908

Project closed

EC signature date 25 July 2019

Start date 1 July 2019

End date 30 September 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

DESERT CONTROL AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LNC (Making Earth Green Again with Liquid Nano Clay)

Reporting period: 2019-07-01 to 2019-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Desert Control AS has developed a patented technology called LNC which enhances desert sand’s and arid soil’s ability to absorb and store water and nutrients to levels comparable with high quality farming soil — with lower irrigation requirement and potentially higher crop yields using established irrigation methods. In short, the effect is to enable unproductive and depleted sandy soil to regain the ability to retain water, minerals and nutrients, making it productive again.
The ultimate goal of the project is to design our commercial-ready automated mobile LNC production units for the automated production and application of LNC in situ. The Feasibility Study specifically aimed to identify how to mature the LNC technology and our commercialization strategy to prepare to license our business solution starting in 2022. We undertook:
1) Technical planning of the specific technical developments and testing needed to arrive at a commercially viable, fully validated LNC mobile LNC production units;
2) Commercialization assessment to refine our go to market strategy and a partner search for the various actors in our value chain;
3) Consolidation of Regulatory Compliance & IP to assess regulations that our technology will need to comply with and opportunities to further consolidate our IP strategy.
4) Financial Feasibility assessment to identify team growth and financial projections needed to ensure ROI by 2027.
In parallel, we have also done an in-depth investigation of the market to support the elaboration of our commercialization strategy and needs for company growth. This complete analysis has been integrated into an updated business plan.

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

The necessary design modifications needed for our commercial mobile LNC production units include: devising a method to continuously produce LNC at a rate of 68m3/hour; ensure the unit is completely mobile and ruggedized and can optimally connect to any water supply system on site to be build, trial and test in three consecutive sizes. A detailed market study has concluded that LNC has a massive potential to treat millions of hectares of land for the private and public sector. For the former sector, reforestation projects alone represents a multi-billion-euro opportunity, while treatment in the agricultural sector and golf industry represent endless opportunities in the private sector. We have also prepared our supply chain, with a list of suppliers for industrial pumps, local source of sodium bentonite, software developers and the sensors including MEGA AS and Vegetronix & Pycno.
We have evolved our commercialization strategy into a three-tiered plan for evolving both the technology of LNC and consecutive business models for each. For the present, we will continue to commercialize LNC under a B2C model until we launch a B2C business model in 2022 whereby we license our mobile LNC production units and standardize our pricing (annual license fees and royalty fees). In order to ensure that we can carry out this strategy, we have identified the need to grow our team by 18 persons over the next 5 years.
We have identified the needs for an LNC Certification Guideline which will detail suppliers of certified calcium bentonite, documentation for Directive 2006/42/EC, 2009/125/EC and Regulation 167/2013, GLOBALG.A.P. and ISO 14055. We identified new patents and other patens we will need to design around to ensure our own FTO of WO2014028467A1, US9505660B2 and US9464003B2. By undertaking a series of financial projections we have found we will achieve ROI within the second year after our market launch. This is taking into the €1.73 M in costs we have estimated associated with the necessary scientific equipment, consulting services and other project costs.

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)

Beyond the objectives we initially set out to achieve, we have realized an opportunity to completely automate the entire mixing and application process by developing a new software system called OptimaLNC. We have identified the necessary databases and programming steps that we need to develop to enable the system to automate and program LNC mixing and application and track changes to the land post treatment. We have also identified opportunities to enable the system to provide concrete irrigation recommendations which would provide additional benefits for the licensees of our automated mobile LNC production units
We have also prepared to develop new references for the key end users identified during our market study. By classifying the appropriate characteristics (i.e. sandy soils, water stress) we have identified optimal locations for a series of three demonstration projects in Palm Springs in California, Huelva in Spain and in the Great Green Wall in Nigeria. With those locations in mind, we have identified potential partners for undertaking these demonstrations and secured LOIs from interested partners.
Regarding our financial assessment, we were also able to identify how many licenses would be necessary to achieve ROI in the first year rather than the second year and generate 20% more revenue and EBITDA in our first year of commercialization. Furthermore, in order to continue to advance our business model and ensure our company’s continued growth, we have planned a third stage of commercialization, as early as 2025, in which we will enter a B2B2E business model whereby we will have multiple pricing models including monetization of data.

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