Tersus Solutions and the Liquid CO2 Washing Machine

The Science

For any technology to win in the market, it needs to provide a solution that solves the problem for the consumer better than the status quo. Otherwise nothing will change, regardless of environmental benefits. That’s exactly what Tersus Solutions has done with their Liquid CO2 washing machine.

To demonstrate just how much better the Tersus Solutions washing machine is, in a test against a standard washing machine, the Tersus Solutions machine removed 98% of oily contaminants in a test on oil field workwear, versus 58% in a standard washing machine.

How does the Tersus machine achieve this? It’s shockingly simple – Liquid Carbon Dioxide. Liquid and supercritical carbon dioxide are effective solvents of organic compounds. Put simply, they’re very good at getting dirt and oil out of clothes.

What this chart shows is the state of carbon dioxide at varying pressures and temperatures and gives you a sense for what’s going on inside the Tersus Solution. It’s about room temperature, and about 15X more pressure than inside a road bike tire.

For those following along at home – if you have clothes in liquid CO2 and depressurize it, what happens?

They dry instantly.

The Machine

So how does the Tersus Solution actually work?

Dirty clothes go in, pressure increases, wait for 20 minutes, pressure decreases, clean and dry clothes come out. So simple. And as an added benefit, while this is happening, the machine is filtering out waste materials and recycling 99% of the CO2 to be reused within the machine.

An added benefit of washing clothes in this way? There’s no wastewater. And that means no micro-plastics being injected into our waterways. These micro-plastics bioaccumulate in the food chain, and assist in the biomagnification of cancer causing chemicals. (More info from Patagonia here).

The Business

Imagine every hotel in the USA using this machine in their laundries. No more water usage, no micro-plastic laden wastewater, no industrial dryers.

Hotels account for 15% of all commercial water usage in the USA, and 16% of hotel water usage is attributed to on-site laundry. If you replace all onsite hotel laundries with the Tersus Solution and you eliminate2.4% of all USA commercial water usage.

As the USA approaches climate change induced water shortages, this kind of step change in efficiency will be crucial in ensuring water security in the second half of the 21st Century.

In a pilot with the US Navy, Tersus expected to reduce water usage by 98%, energy costs by 50%, and overall operating costs by between 30-60%. These are lofty numbers, and I wasn’t able to find additional information on the bottom line impact of the Tersus Solution. But achieving even half of the claimed cost savings it would be an amazing result, and that’s in addition to the environmental benefits.

For consumers, Tersus is currently marketing Waterless Cleaning as a Service. This involves shipping clothing items to Tersus in Colorado, where they deep clean your clothes in Liquid CO2 and ship them back to you. I’m not sure if this is something I would ever use, and it would be very interesting to examine the environmental impact of shipping clothes across the country.

For businesses, Tersus is marketing to the Outdoors, Military, Fire and Workwear industries, where they are able to clean sensitive textiles like ballistic vests and PPE.

Interestingly, Tersus is partnering with REI and Patagonia Worn Wear to clean and recoat used garments with DWR (Durable Water Repellent) for resale. It’s a key piece of infrastructure for the developing circular economy for clothes that allows Patagonia to recycle and resell used technical clothing.

Final Word

I fully expect Elon Musk to put a Tersus Solution and a couple of solar panels on Mars in the near future. It certainly helps that Mars’ atmosphere is 95% CO2.

For Earth, however, I think these are the most impactful takeaways:

• The Tersus Solution works better than regular washing machines

• The clothes dry instantly upon depressurization

• There is no wastewater to pollute waterways with micro-plastics

• It is 30-60% cheaper to operate than regular washing machines

The Tersus Solution has a huge opportunity to serve commercial customers with its significantly better and cheaper liquid CO2 washing machine. The fact that it is environmentally friendly is excellent, but is not what is going to drive widespread change.

Check out the original post at domglover.com!