AQUALUNAR CHALLENGE SEMI-FINALIST CIMBUS INC

Toronto start-up Cimbus Inc poised to go to the Moon and back with novel water treatment technologies

“Our team feels right at home in this Challenge! Within Cimbus, every day our team is working on drinking water treatment and supply projects in some of the most water scarce regions on earth.Together with our partners at York University and Plastic Flux, this includes everything from designing novel water treatment technologies to developing tools and ways to operate those technologies remotely. “ --Danmei Chen, CTO Cimbus

Interview with Danmei Chen

By Suzanne Forcese

WT: Please introduce yourself to our viewers.

Chen: I am the Chief Technology Officer of Cimbus. My main focus within Cimbus is to oversee the technology development by Cimbus and consider what feasible/achievable design and analytics work we can and should do. I’m currently also a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. My research topic focuses on utilizing numerical modelling tools such as computational fluid dynamics for understanding and optimizing the use of UV technologies for drinking water treatment.

WT: Please give us an overview of your start-up and the journey that brought you to found Cimbus.

Chen: Cimbus is a company with the goal of helping communities, organizations, and governments to address their complex water, environment, and sustainability challenges. We do this through several models, including the design of new technologies and systems; establishing and guiding partnerships to achieve shared sustainability goals; and providing advisory and advanced modelling services (e.g., computational fluid dynamics, statistical data analytics, machine learning).

Our co-founders share similar academic and professional paths - we were PhD candidates in the same research group, and our research topics crossed paths. On top of the friendship we established, we also shared similar passions for supporting communities in addressing their sustainability challenges. Cimbus was then founded in Spring 2024.

WT: Please comment on the combined talent of the Team and how that creates your Mission & Vision.

Chen: Our Aqualunar team combines talent from three main aspects:

Water Treatment: Led by Cimbus. Our combined experience encompasses managing and providing technical oversight for multi-million-dollar water treatment and recycling projects, including at the largest wastewater reuse plant in the world and challenging decentralized, rural, and remote environments in 15 countries.

Manufacturing and Resource Recovery: Led by Plastic Flux, who bring expertise in equipment manufacturing and in the circular economy with hydrocarbon recovery.

Astronautics: Led by Dr. Michael Bazzocchi, an Assistant Professor at York University and Director of the Astronautics and Robotics Laboratory (ASTRO Lab) and Deputy Instrument Scientist for the OSIRIS-APEX Laser Altimeter (CSA-NASA).

Our team feels right at home in this Challenge! Within Cimbus, every day our team is working on drinking water treatment and supply projects in some of the most water scarce regions on earth. For the past several years, our partners at Plastic Flux have been working across Ontario designing and building equipment to collect waste products, recover their beneficial resources, and transform them into useful materials. Finally, our partner at York University, Michael Bazzhocchi, leads an astronautics and space robotics research group and has worked on complex space exploration missions with renowned institutions across several continents. We are very excited to be able to bring our diverse set of experiences together for this Challenge.

In terms of the vision ahead, we aim to harness our research and manufacturing networks to bridge any expertise gaps pertinent to LIWARS’ reliability and suitability for lunar environments. This includes collaborations with researchers and available resources at York University’s ASTRO Lab and analytical chemistry laboratories for subsequent stages of R&D.

WT: Congratulations on being named one of the semi-finalists in the Aqualunar Challenge!What has this meant for the team?

Chen: Advancing in the Aqualunar Challenge has been incredibly exciting for our team. Everybody at Cimbus, Plastic Flux, and the ASTRO Lab, is very passionate and proud of the work that we do. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to do that work in support of Canada’s Space Strategy. This represents an opportunity for us to be a part of Canada’s long and storied legacy of space innovation, and to be a part of inspiring the next generation of Canadians to reach for the stars.

Closer to home, advancing in this challenge allows us to continue our work developing water supply solutions for challenging environments, which can be used to support vulnerable communities here on Earth. We are grateful to Impact Canada and the Canadian Space Agency for their support, and we are looking forward to what comes next!

WT: What was there about the Challenge that spoke to you and gave you the impetus to answer the call?

Chen: What spoke to us is that this is a very unique challenge and a really cool project! In all our respective careers, we have contributed to solving infrastructure and water quality challenges in some of the most isolated and resource-scarce environments in the world.

Finding a way to produce potable water in the unfathomably hostile and entirely remote environment of the moon is entirely up our alley. A part of what gave us the impetus to answer the call is the great relationships that we’ve built. We have incredible partners at York University and Plastic Flux that are helping to make our solution possible. We also have wonderful relationships with equipment manufacturers to research labs across the globe who share our passion for solving complex environmental and public health challenges and who are eager to support our team in this challenge.

WT: Your project is titled: The Lunar Ice Water and Resource Recovery System How do you expect the Challenge project will advance your work on Earth?

Chen: During the design phase, we had the intention to make the impact of LIWARS equally transformative to earth applications. The technologies we use have the potential to address water security in arid regions, providing new avenues for sustainable water remediation and resource recovery. This aligns with Cimbus’s mission of addressing water scarcity issues in low-resource and decentralized settings as well.

WT: What is next for you in the Challenge and beyond?

Chen: Coming up next, we will focus on validating the sub-components of the LIWARS through experimental and analytical processes. Develop a thorough report on proof of concept with physical and analytical evidence to support the development of our alpha prototype to a Technology Readiness Level of 3 or more.

Cimbus is driven by a passion for helping communities address environmental and sustainability challenges. We will continue our mission in parallel with the Aqualunar Challenge, where new partnerships and experiences will allow us to broaden our approaches to sustainability and address water and environmental challenges in unseen/challenging environments.