Dear AquiPor Investors,
I'm pleased to share with you our quarterly update as we come out of the Summer months with a lot of momentum. We continue to wring the technical risks out of our concrete technology as we prepare for commercialization, while quietly developing the markets for our products and I'm excited to share some of these details with you in this update.
Product Development:
On the product development front, we've made a key improvement to our porous concrete technology that makes it much easier to manufacture at scale, resulting in what we believe to be our most adoption-ready version of the technology to date.
By blending the best performance aspects of our Catalytic concrete with the ease-of-production offered by traditional concrete technology, AquiPor's technology is now fully compatible with current paver and precast manufacturing practices.
Over the next several weeks we'll be finalizing project-ready mix designs for both pavers and precast panels. We are currently conducting performance testing for strength, durability, permeability (mass flow), and filtration. In addition to its improved manufacturability, our initial performance data suggests that this mix outperforms earlier versions of our technology in terms of strength and durability as well
Cast-In-Place version is now Under Development:
While still very much under development, we are also advancing a pour-in-place version of our porous concrete technology (for e.g. light vehicular roadway shoulders, runways, parking lots, etc.). A question that we're often asked is whether AquiPor can be used to pour high-volume surfaces such as roadways. This development gets us one step closer to that objective and we believe demonstrates the versatility and inherent innovation with this technology.
Due to patenting considerations, there isn't much technical detail that we can lend yet. What I can say is this mix also batches and pours almost identically to ready-mix, pour-in-place concrete. The big difference between this version of our technology and traditional pervious concrete is that we can densify the mix to eliminate large voids (which are prone to clogging), and filter stormwater without clogging the system.
We believe that a pour-in-place version of the technology greatly expands the use cases of our porous concrete, especially for larger surfacing projects. We will continue to develop this version of the technology by taking it through the appropriate engineering paces and performance testing for cast-in-place paving over the next several months.
This small demonstration shows the cast-in-place version of our technology. We simulate the accumulation of dirt and debris (e.g. from a construction site) in an attempt to clog the installation. We then use a power washer to maintain the surface, helping return the material to full permeability.
Scaling Up Material Supply:
We've begun working with a key supplier to develop a three phase plan for scaling up material supply of our Catalytic concrete materials over the next 3 years. We're developing the plan to support our initial project opportunities in the near term, but also with an eye toward meeting our project growth objectives longer term, and continually lowering our material costs as we grow.
As part of this plan, our supplier intends to conduct a professional feasibility study to determine the viability of vertically integrating the production and sizing of our raw concrete materials, which will also help determine our unit economics at a much larger scale.
I am already encouraged by the initial unit economics for our products as we prepare to go to market, and this strategic plan by our supplier should lower our material input costs and lead to more robust margins as we grow.
Market Development:
We are discussing a project partnership that would facilitate the financing and construction of up to 1 mile of AquiPor’s permeable sidewalk system as a demonstration project. This pilot would be a first of its kind permeable sidewalk infrastructure project, with the target location in Southern California. We are in the very early stages of planning and will announce more as these plans come together.
There are also a handful of smaller pilots we are also looking at as early as this year and into 2025, including a small commercial retrofit for which we've obtained a non-binding Letter of Intent. Even though these opportunities are smaller in scope, we're determining the feasibility of each opportunity based on the timing of each project coinciding with material supply availability and manufacturing capabilities, as well as project financing considerations.
In addition to private sector market opportunities, we are regularly monitoring and applying for relevant grant and project opportunities from U.S. federal agencies, including the EPA, NSF, USDA, and DOE. We are becoming more comfortable with the process and due to the time commitment required for these opportunities, we see the value in adding a project manager with a grant writing and public policy background as we expand our headcount and grow.
Quarterly Sales and Expenses:
Thus far in 2024, our effort remained focused on technology and market development, with no notable sales and no notable expenses reported. We are maintaining a conservative burn rate, averaging $45k per month, with cash inflows averaging $53k per month through August.
Industry Updates:
1. The U.S. stormwater infrastructure market continues to see significant growth driven by increased investment in climate resiliency. We're keeping an eye on these developments and couldn't help but notice New York City recently allocate $32 Million to install porous pavement throughout 7 miles of road infrastructure in Brooklyn, NY. This signals the market growth and expedited acceptance of permeable paving and green infrastructure in cities.
2. Additionally, with Senate Bill 596 and companion Bill 778, California has become the first state to require specific emissions reductions from the cement industry. Concrete is now included in California's Buy Clean program, requiring contractors to use low-carbon building materials for state contracts. This could be a tailwind for AquiPor as we introduce our products to the market.
3. Boston's Water and Sewer Commission recently implemented a stormwater charge that applies to all properties with more than 400 square feet of impervious surface area. Several U.S. cities have imposed similar stormwater fees to raise funds for water infrastructure improvements. Because charges are based on the impervious surface cover of the property, we anticipate greater demand for permeable pavement and green infrastructure among property developers.
Future Plans:
Through the remainder of 2024 we'll continue to focus on the technical readiness of our porous concrete technology as we push closer to commercialization. We're also working toward supply and manufacturing partnerships, in-ground demos, and securing pilot projects.
In terms of financing the next leg of company growth, we are strongly considering a new capital raise toward the end of the year to maintain our momentum and achieve our Company milestones. We will share details as we're able to, per SEC regulations.
In closing, we appreciate your support and appreciate the insights and opportunities you continue to bring to us! If you know of any future projects or significant opportunities, please let us know. Thank you from the entire AquiPor team!
Looking forward to the journey ahead,
Greg Johnson
AquiPor Technologies, Inc.
CEO
Like a lot of startups Aquipor is built upon its failures. We had thousands of concrete mix recipes fail to be good enough to move forward with. But with the amazing support of our investors we were able to make what we have today; a project ready permeable concrete mix that uses recycled industrial materials, takes less carbon emissions to produce, and helps cities to filter contaminants in stormwater and send that water to refill aquifers
Invest today in our hard won technology at StartEngine.com/Aquipor
We have rights to a new patent - and it’s a big deal, see why
Our New Distributed Water System Patent Will Be A Pillar Of AquiPor Technologies
Water loves to flow, clean water, polluted water, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, too much polluted water is ending up in our waterways. We can however, give gravity and nature a helping hand by being good stewards of our wastewater. Which is why here at AquiPor we’re really excited to announce our latest patent for a distributed water system.
This is a big idea, and it takes a little bit to really flush out all the details, so we’ll start here with highest level overview, and as we move forward we’re going to break this down deeper as we go.
This is going to sound almost ridiculous how basic the idea sounds - sewer pipes live everywhere, you’re probably only a few yards from some sewer pipe going to the street, then going to treatment plant, or worse yet, going to your community's waterways!
These pipes by design have a much larger diameter than they would almost ever need to run this water to its destination, and this is primarily for air flow purposes. So our technology group patented an idea - let’s run small hoses that use less than 5% of the area of the pipe that can flow back and forth from the water treatment plant (or wherever we want really) and control, maintain and properly distribute water more efficiently.
So say instead of just cleaning water and dumping it back into your local river, we can run that water back up towards the aquifer and allow it return to nature there? Thus avoiding flooding in rain events, controling water means a level of efficiency that can help cities save millions of dollars and gallons of water, both of which you want to use for your community.
This is the fundamental idea of our new patent. If you’re as excited about this, understand technical literature, or have some time on your hand, you can read the patent here:
Next time we’ll connect current AquiPor tech with this new tech and explain how they work symbiotically, and how our green concrete is just the tip of the engineering spear of AquiPor!
What do Beanie Babies, Nirvana and AquiPor Concrete Have In Common?
Studies from the 1990’s add layers of validation to AquiPor’s concrete tech
For those of you that have been asking, we wanted to give you a deeper dive into our concrete technology!
Did you know that AquiPor’s base concrete binder system is a patented technology with ties to research from the 1990’s? Originally, researchers were studying chemically binding ceramics for their potential as cements able to tie up industrial and even low-level radioactive waste without leaching.
These cements are synthesized and bonded chemically instead of requiring energy-intensive sintering. Unlike portland cement, this technology's cements have an inherently low CO2 footprint. For example, we estimate that AquiPor’s CO2 footprint is at least 80% lower than traditional concrete!
Back in the 90’s, researchers also found that this binder exhibits superior mechanical properties compared to conventional cements. They are more stable in acidic and high-temperature environments, making them suitable for a wider range of applications.
But at the time, scientists also determined that the cost of these new cements would initially be more expensive than traditional cements and that’s pretty much where their research left off in the 90’s.
Fast forward 30 years and as chance would have it our technology group had formulated and began patenting mix designs that utilize industrial feedstock that not only drops the cost structure of this concrete, but also points to tremendous economies of scale as we grow.
With low leachability due to its chemical stability and effective immobilization of contaminants, the ability to incorporate industrial byproducts in our concrete supports eco-friendly practices that could be a game changer for industry.
It’s just one more way that AquiPor is changing the game when it comes to advanced materials and engineering for cleaning up industry and making infrastructure more climate-friendly.
Go to StartEngine.com/aquipor learn more about our technology and let us know if you like geekier posts about our technology like this!
At Aquipor’s live webinar and Q&A our CEO Greg Johnson and product engineer Josh Chastek went over what Aquipor has accomplished in the last year and what Aquipor’s goals are for 2024. They go over a lot of great info throughout the stream, give it a listen!
While so-called climate experts wring their hands about fossil fuel vs. EV powered vehicles, it turns out that the biggest climate threat from vehicles comes from their tires.
According to a recent report, 78% percent of the microplastics in oceans come from synthetic tire rubber, all by way of stormwater runoff. Those microplastics end up in marine life, and ultimately end up in the seafood that humans consume.
Tire rubber contains more than 400 chemicals and compounds, many of them carcinogenic, and research is only beginning to show how widespread the problems from tire dust may be.
“Tire wear particles” are emitted continually as vehicles travel and they range in size from visible pieces of rubber or plastic to microparticles. It is estimated that tires generate 6 million tons of particles a year, of which 200,000 tons end up in oceans.
The silver lining is that scientists studying the pollutants in stormwater runoff have found that green infrastructure solutions such as rain gardens could prevent more than 90 percent of tire particulates from entering our waterways.
AquiPor’s technology is being developed to accomplish the same thing, but at a much larger scale, by capturing and filtering runoff through our permeable system right within the urban landscape.
As we begin our water quality and filtration testing of our permeable concrete, we’ll keep you close to these developments!
CEO Greg Johnson and product engineer Josh Chastek talk about progress made on the tech front of AquiPor. They also talk about how our concrete tech acts as a filter, and what that means for cities that implement it.
Did you know that AquiPor is taking investments to increase production and grow?
Check out what we’re doing at StartEngine.com/Aquipor
AquiPor Community,
Did you see the recent investigative article in the New York Times regarding groundwater depletion in the U.S.?
Aquifers supply 90% of our nation’s water supply, but they are being over-pumped to levels that could cause irreversible damage to the U.S. economy and society as a whole - emanating in lower crop yields, poor drinking water quality, and shunted land development (housing).
A quiet contributor to this problem that doesn’t get enough attention is the amount of impervious surface area that covers our cities. With 40-60% of the urban landscape covered by impervious surfaces (streets, sidewalks, parking lots, etc.), rainwater that should be naturally re-entering the ground never gets the chance. Instead it becomes runoff that contributes to urban flooding.
These very issues are at the forefront of AquiPor’s mission to develop the permeable concrete technologies and engineering systems to help manage stormwater and recharge groundwater right within the built environment.
With a commitment by cities to introduce more permeable surfaces and upgrade existing stormwater systems with green infrastructure, we can start to reverse these trends.
Can your community benefit from AquiPor? We’d love to hear from you.
Find out more about AquiPor and learn how you can invest in this technology from the ground up!
The U.S. Geological Survey recently put together a model that estimated the amount of impervious parking lot coverage in the United States.
According to the report, 5.5% of all developed land in the lower 48 is covered by parking lots. That’s close to 26 billion square feet of surface area that is impervious to stormwater. All of this impervious surface area contributes to stormwater pollution and localized flooding when it rains.
With U.S. cities responsible for discharging up to 10 Trillion gallons of polluted water into clean waterways and flood damage costing the country $9 billion annually, parking lots represent an obvious opportunity for implementing green stormwater infrastructure.
By my very rough math, parking lots are responsible for tens of billions of gallons of stormwater runoff annually. That represents runoff that not only needs to be treated, but it’s also water that never makes its way back into the ground to recharge groundwater. In drought-plagued regions like the southwest and California, groundwater recharge is one of the most critical water management strategies that can be implemented.
One easy solution to this problem is to make parking lots surface-permeable. The right permeable pavement technology, when it’s accompanied with good engineering, is a no-brainer approach to stormwater management and groundwater recharge.
Besides the environmental benefits, the economic benefits of permeable pavements are understated. Getting stormwater back into the ground naturally is extremely valuable. Simply put, every gallon of freshwater that doesn’t need to be treated at a downstream wastewater treatment plant or imported from hundreds of miles away, represents real savings for a community.
In a previous post we addressed why we don’t yet see permeable pavement everywhere. At AquiPor, we’re working to change that with a technology that makes permeable paving the norm and not the exception in cities. The parking lot seems like a good place to start this trend.
At AquiPor, we believe that climate change is mostly a water issue. One of the most significant impacts of a warming atmosphere is the effect that it’s having on precipitation. The amount of water that a region gets and when it gets that water has become more and more unpredictable. This can mean too much water (flooding) in some regions, and not nearly enough (drought) in others. And even in drought-stricken areas, when precipitation does come, it can be volatile and sudden.
Extreme rain events, outdated infrastructure, and the vast amount of impervious surfaces in our cities all factor into the alarming levels of runoff pollution and urban flooding that communities now have to contend with.
At AquiPor, we’ve developed our permeable concrete technology to take the place of traditional paved surfaces to help manage stormwater, reduce pollution from runoff, and help mitigate flooding in cities and towns alike. Here are five ways that AquiPor can help make our communities more resilient to climate change:
- AquiPor’s permeable concrete manages stormwater right where it falls by allowing rain to flow through the material and naturally soak back into the ground. Instead of relying on inadequate gray infrastructure (underground pipes, tanks, and conveyance systems), which gets overwhelmed in big rain events, AquiPor captures and filters stormwater where it falls, getting precious rainfall back into the ground naturally. This is especially important for regions experiencing historic drought such as in California, where record amounts of precipitation were wasted due to inadequate infrastructure.
2. AquiPor makes it easier for cities to deal with water pollution. It’s estimated that over 10 TRILLION GALLONS of untreated stormwater, wastewater, and sewage gets discharged into clean water bodies every year. This is due to the vast amount of impervious concrete and asphalt surfaces in cities, the amount of runoff these surfaces generate, and the outdated nature of gray infrastructure systems that are ill-equipped to deal with large volumes of runoff.
When it rains, stormwater that should naturally soak into soils and recharge groundwater instead becomes polluted runoff as soon as it hits the pavement. Much of this polluted runoff ends up in nearby water bodies.
By replacing traditional pavements with AquiPor’s permeable concrete, stormwater can now flow through the concrete and back into the ground. Due to the tiny pore size of AquiPor concrete, it can even filter out the majority of dirt, debris, and pollutants found in stormwater.
3. AquiPor’s product has an inherently low CO2 footprint. Cement and concrete production is responsible for 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions each year. In addition to AquiPor’s ability to manage stormwater and mitigate flooding, our concrete is produced in an entirely new way and does not use normal cement in the process. Instead, we use a combination of industrial minerals and without the need for cement plants, our process has an extremely low CO2 footprint when compared to normal concrete.
4. AquiPor uses recycled materials. Instead of relying on pollutive cements and additives, our concrete uses a proprietary mix of industrial minerals and “leftovers” from other industries.
5. AquiPor’s concrete is precast, making it easy and efficient to install. Precast concrete has a myriad of advantages, including uniformity, saving time, and improved quality control. Precast concrete is manufactured offsite in a covered environment which means it isn’t weather dependent, and it enables just in time delivery for jobs. It also allows for a cleaner, safer construction site.
These are just a few of the ways that AquiPor’s permeable concrete technology can make communities more resilient in the face of climate change. Where can this technology make the biggest impact in your community?