But there’s a lot more. Semiconductors make the world go round and require pristine water as part of the production process. Chemical buildup can ruin industrial equipment and destroy farm yields. Hospitals are surprisingly water quality-dependent. For all the technology in modern water treatment plants, until Noria, there wasn’t a good way to directly monitor the condition and performance of the membranes.

By the time it became apparent there was a problem, the desalination plants would need to shut down plant sections for maintenance and/or do extensive chemical cleaning. This is expensive, often requiring lots of labor, and taking the plant offline for an unacceptable period of time. There had to be a better way.

Enter UCLA Distinguished Research Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Dr. Yoram Cohen. When he co-founded Noria in 2014, he’d already published many of his 280+ research papers and book chapters on water technology, separation processes, polymer science and environmental engineering. His technical background and reputation have allowed him to build confidence in Noria and to convince some of the largest utilities in the world to install Noria technology.

Normally, a startup needs to start with smaller early-adopters to build credibility, and then work their way up. Noria can boast of having its membrane monitoring systems in place in locations from Orange County to Alaska to Singapore to the Middle East. The OC plant purifies 130 million gallons per day. That’s enough for eight million people to take a shower.

There are three main components to Noria. The first is the physical monitoring equipment that monitors the status of the RO membrane via direct real-time surface imaging, in addition to monitoring flow, pressure, salinity, and temperature. The product is called RO-Spotlight™. When a membrane begins to show surface blockage, it’s detectable because the deposition of foulants (i.e., particles, biological foulants and mineral salt scalants) is observed via the imaging system of the RO-Spotlight™. Moreover, blockage of the membrane surface is also revealed when it either takes higher pressure to move the same output of water through the membrane, or there’s a lower treated water output for the same pressure.

Second, Noria combines its RO-Spotlight™ hardware with advanced software that allows plant personnel to monitor any of their locations anywhere in the world from their smartphone. There’s an important security element too. Water treatment facilities are always at risk of terrorist or hacker attacks. The Noria system bypasses the main control system and in no way operates any of the plant equipment. It’s a one-way information flow that allows Noria to relay conclusions and offer decision support.

Third, with the huge amount of data being picked up by the monitoring devices and pushed through the software, Noria is utilizing AI and Machine Learning for analytics purposes. This leads to the third component, Engineering Services. Calling on a team with more than 80 years of experience in the field and using a holistic approach that takes into account all variables, Noria is able to rapidly identify desalination plant operational problems and suggest process improvements.