Rapid City startup sets sights on safe water

CalxAqua receives Giant Vision award to help commercialize water treatment system

BY KRIS BEVILL

CalxAqua LLC received this year’s top honor at the annual South Dakota Governor’s Giant Vision awards, held during the Governor’s Office of Economic Development conference April 16 in Sioux Falls. From left, David Owen, South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry president; Mat Peabody, CalxAqua LLC president and Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Since 2005, the state of South Dakota, the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry and private industry members have come together once a year to reward innovative new business ideas with the Governor’s Giant Vision awards. Created to honor ideas that will spur economic growth, create employment and spawn opportunities for future entrepreneurs, the awards program offers entrants the opportunity to compete for seed money provided through public and private funds. Twenty-two applicants entered the business competition this year, of which 12 were selected to compete for prize money. A total of $47,000 was awarded to businesses and students whose ideas met judging criteria for innovation, uniqueness, market potential and solid management and financial planning.

Mary Anne Boyd, vice president of program services at the South Dakota chamber office, says Gov. Dennis Daugaard committed $40,000 in public funds for the program this year, to be used in prize money as a match to pri- vate funds raised by the chamber for the program. Citibank N.A. of Sioux Falls served as the corporate sponsor for the program. Other sponsors included Black Hills Power and Black Hills Corp., Christiansen Land & Cattle Ltd., Dacotah Bank, Daktronics Inc., South Dakota EPSCoR, Toshiba America, U.S. Bank, Wheeler Manufacturing and Xcel Energy.

“The goal of this program is to encourage people to explore being a business owner and to create an exciting future while also expanding South Dakota’s economy,” David Owen, president of the South Dakota Chamber, says. “While the prize money will help the finalists, the contacts and rigor required to be a qualifier will prepare each entrepreneur to advance their business idea.”

This year’s top prize, $20,000, was awarded to Rapid City-based CalxAqua LLC, a South Dakota School of Mines and Technology startup focused on providing an affordable and environmentally friendly system to remove hazardous heavy metals from drinking water.

“Potable, safe water is paramount to good health worldwide, and there are regions of the world where arsenicosis (arsenic poisoning) is endemic and a huge health issue,” CalxAqua President Mat Peabody says. “The problem has been around for quite awhile and the current solutions tend to be quite expensive. Our system is considerably less expensive and just as effective, if not more effective, than currently practiced technology.”

CalxAqua’s proprietary technology uses limestone as well as limestone coated with iron to remove arsenic and other unwanted heavy metals from water. The company utilizes technology originally developed by SDSMT and Rohm and Haas in 2005. SDSMT’s first effort to commercialize the technology, a startup known as Hydrotech Engineering, focused on using pure limestone, but it failed to gain traction. Last year, after the school brought in SDSMT alumnus Peabody, a chemical engineer and serial entrepreneur, to serve as its entrepreneur-in-residence and commercialize some of the technologies created at the school, it was determined that the limestone technology deserved another chance. CalxAqua was born as the result.

Peabody says the technology’s cost effectiveness when compared with similar technologies and ability to provide safe drinking water worldwide made its potential for commercialization very interesting. However, rather than focus on pure limestone, as Hydrotech did, CalxAqua’s focus will be on using treated limestone. After determining to move forward with CalxAqua, Peabody negotiated an exclusive worldwide license from Dow (owner of Rohm and Haas) for the patented technology to use treated limestone. He also formed a partnership with Rapid City-based mining company Pete Lien & Sons Inc. “They have the limestone and they know how to process and handle limestone in industrial commercial situations,” Peabody says. “They are an ideal partner because we’re adding considerable value to limestone and certainly we will benefit from their expertise in this area.”

CalxAqua’s offices and lab will be located at Pete Lien & Sons’ site in Rapid City. The company is also moving ahead fairly rapidly with plans to build a manufacturing plant at the site and will complete the project by later this year, according to Peabody. The company is expected to initially employ about 15 people and will market its technology to municipalities, homes and businesses. Pilot sites have been identified in South Dakota, Arizona, Michigan and Texas. The company is also looking for sites in California, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. In the future, the technology could also be used in the remediation of mine tailings and fracking fluids. “My initial thought is to leverage the [award] money along with the Dakota Seeds program, and matching funds from industry and SDSMT to sponsor one or two Ph.D.-level students to do some additional studies to continually improve on a good thing and make it even better,” Peabody says.

Because arsenic poisoning is a worldwide issue, Peabody envisions CalxAqua becoming a global provider of water treatment systems from its base in Rapid City. He credits the state, SDSMT and Pete Lien & Sons for providing support to launch the company and says the result is an example of what can be achieved when academia, government and industry cooperate and communicate. “It has really been a collaborative effort,” he says.

Boyd says the chamber will begin promoting next year’s Giant Vision program in September. The deadline for applications will be sometime in February 2014. Winners will be selected during the Governor’s Office of Economic Development conference, scheduled to be held April 15, 2014, in Sioux Falls. For more information on the program, visit www.southdakotagiantvision.com PB

Kris Bevill Editor, Prairie Business 701-306-8561, kbevill@prairiebizmag.com