KII Inc and its Suns River brand announced on 21 September 2012 the successful start-up and operation of its patented solar-still technology to produce safe water for human uses.
The process is designed to use solar power to produce distilled water from a variety of salt water sources including seawater, brackish well water and concentrated brine streams.
Suns River demonstrated its technology at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This facility, owned and operated by the US Bureau of Reclamation, is dedicated to support research and development of technologies to remove salt from brackish groundwater found throughout the deserts in the western United States.
“With this breakthrough, an idea that has been around since the time of Aristotle moves out of the scrap heap of technology to join and compete with the newer technologies like reverse osmosis,” said inventor and CEO Hill Kemp. The process is covered by US Patent #8,088,257 and other pending patents.
One advantage claimed for the Suns River solar desalination process is its ability to be scaled to the users’ needs and located at or near their homes and businesses. This saves time and cost of water transport. With some people in the western United States paying more than 15 times the market price for good quality water, this technology offers a lower cost alternative with virtually no environmental impact.