MTBE in Drinking Water

The 1990 amendments to the U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA) signed by President George H. W. Bush established detailed requirements for motor fuels. Among other things, the CAA created the Reformulated Gasoline Program, mandating the addition of oxygenates to fuel. Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) was the most cost-effective chemical compound used as a fuel oxygenate in gasoline throughout 1990s. After the widespread contamination of drinking water sources with MTBE became evident, the substance was banned in 2003-2006 by many US states and Canadian provinces.

MTBE is a volatile, flammable and colorless liquid that is relatively soluble in water. When in groundwater, MTBE moves much more quickly than other gasoline components. MTBE has an offensive odor and is highly toxic. It causes kidney cancer in laboratory rats and according to many studies is a powerful human carcinogen.

Due to MTBE leaks out of underground fuel storage tanks the water supply of some US cities (Santa Monica and Lake Tahoe in California being examples) is rendered undrinkable. Even small amounts of MTBE can cause an entire community's groundwater supply to become undrinkable, due to its unpleasant turpentine-like taste and odor. Once MTBE has contaminated a drinking water source, its chemical nature makes it very difficult, costly, and time-consuming to remove using traditional cleanup methods such as air stripping.

President George H. W. Bush congratulates academician Viktor Petrik, the inventor of MTBE cleanup process, on his achievements (2006).

BionomicTech offers a principally novel and very cost-effective solution for the complete removal of MTBE from water. The method is protected by the US patent 7,128,881 awarded in October 2006. The unique process unit includes alternating sections of hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials that turn liquid MTBE into gas. Then gaseous MTBE is destroyed by a catalytic reaction using a combination of carbon nanostructure and active metal. The technology is absolutely effective when used for cleaning contaminated water with any concentration of MTBE. The result of the cleaning process is a good quality drinking water.

Test Results

The technology has been thoroughly tested with hundreds of MTBE-contaminated water samples with MTBE concentration ranging from 110 μg/L to 9800 μg/L. In all cases the results showed no MTBE presence in water after the proposed treatment. The test results were certified by two reputable analytical labs in the US – Sierra Analytical Labs (see the test protocol here) and Del Mar Analytical (see the test protocol here).

Applications

BionomicTech markets this unique patented technology to those companies and organizations that would benefit from the opportunity to clean the water “in-line” running the contaminated water through our process unit and then supplying the clean effluent water as drinking water. The process unit is scalable and can work with virtually any water flow to provide a clean drinking water for the residents of the areas affected by MTBE contamination.