Water
Capture, clean, reuse.
Water systems are designed as circular processes, not linear utilities. In Heliphere systems, there is no wastewater - only water at different stages of reuse.
Water systems are designed as circular processes, not linear utilities. In Heliphere systems, there is no wastewater - only water at different stages of reuse.
Municipal networks and bulk transport cannot be assumed in remote, disaster, or off-grid environments. Water becomes a limiting resource.
Every output of the water loop is an input somewhere else. Mineral concentrates, hydrogen, and processed water are not waste products — they are feedstocks for materials, energy storage, and biological systems.
Advanced membrane systems purify water from brackish, saline and contaminated sources without consumable chemical treatment. The focus is on low-energy membranes, fouling resistance and integration with closed-loop water management for continuous operation.
Electrochemical treatment systems disinfect, remove dissolved contaminants and recover minerals without chemical dosing. These systems operate continuously from electrical power, eliminating scheduled consumable replacement and the logistics dependency that comes with it.
Desiccant materials, condensation surfaces and thermoelectric cooling extract water directly from ambient humidity. These technologies provide a water source in environments with no surface, ground or piped water access — critical for arid, remote and disaster-response deployments.
Biological and physical treatment systems return wastewater from sanitation and washing to potable or irrigation quality. Closing the blackwater loop eliminates the largest volume of water waste in any occupied facility and completes the water cycle within the system boundary.
Low-energy desalination approaches — including forward osmosis, capacitive deionisation and pressure-retarded osmosis — are a key focus. Research targets systems that can operate from renewable and nuclear energy sources at the small scale required for off-grid and remote deployments.
Water electrolysis systems produce hydrogen for long-duration energy storage and oxygen for the air loop. The water loop and energy loop converge here — surplus power is stored as hydrogen, and hydrogen combustion or fuel cells recover both energy and water simultaneously.
Concentration and crystallisation processes reduce brine streams to dry mineral solids. The outputs — calcium, magnesium, silica, and salts — become feedstocks for the materials loop. Zero liquid discharge means the water loop produces no waste at any stage of the process.
Distributed sensor networks provide real-time monitoring of water quality, flow, pressure and chemistry throughout the loop. Continuous monitoring enables automated treatment responses, prevents quality failures before they propagate, and provides the data foundation for optimising water use across all connected systems.