Based in Singapore and founded in 2013, Nano Sun is becoming a growing leader in desalination and industrial wastewater management. Their 3D printed filtration membrane technology, manufactured without acidic chemicals as standard membranes are, can remove the same pollutants and at higher rates than solutions spread across the industry today.

Nano Sun achieves this superior performance by printing millions of polyvinyl fluoride (plastic) nanofiber layers on top of one another and compressing them into a membrane so durable it can purify industrial and municipal wastewater. Change the thickness of the fibers and you can tune the membrane’s properties to fit the customer’s needs.

Six years into operation, the company has already installed treatment systems in 15 government and industrial facilities, processing anywhere from 10 to 20,000 cubic meters of wastewater per day. A massive municipal wastewater treatment plant in China and two of the largest semiconductor companies in Singapore were some of Nano Sun’s first customers.

"Now that our technology has been validated, we need to able to provide the most cost-effective solution for our next phase of growth,” said Dr. Wong Ann Chai, the company’s managing director and co-founder.

"When there is a disruptive innovation leapfrogging conventional processes, others will soon follow… so we will need to be always one step ahead of our competitors, researching, designing and building advanced water treatment systems that are smaller, more efficient, and cost-competitive." – Darren Sun, Co-Founder and Assoc Professor at Nanyang Technological University.

Generating annual revenues of over $7 million USD and beginning a pilot study of pharmaceutical desalination treatment in 2019, the company has every intention to challenge the dominance of industry incumbents.