News
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2025
July 24
The Texas Water Development Board awards Plum Creek Conservation District a $200,000 grant to deploy a batch reverse osmosis system for irrigating agricultural land. Plum Creek Conservation District is providing an additional $200,000 in local cost share. Texas Water Newsroom Press Release | Harmony press release
May 17
Harmony performs its first seawater desalination tests.
April 15
npj Clean Water publishes results from Harmony’s award-winning field demonstration. Our batch RO process reliably produced supersaturated brine with no performance deterioration due to scaling. Open access link
2024 ↑
November 21
Can desalination quench agriculture’s thirst?. Knowable Magazine publishes Lela Nargi’s piece on brackish desalting for agriculture. Mesquite, Harmony’s solar-powered desalting container sponsored by the Bureau of Reclamation, is featured.
April 18
The Bureau of Reclamation selects Harmony to receive $390,871 in federal funds to pilot batch RO with electrically conducting membranes for scale prevention in collaboration with Active Membranes. More details to come. Reclamation press release
March 27
At last, Harmony is cleared to start work on a pilot project funded by the National Alliance for Water Innovation. The pilot, built in collaboration with Purdue University, Colorado School of Mines, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Olin College, will be a retrofit and our largest system to date. NAWI press release | Purdue press release | Harmony update
2023 ↑
November 30
The Bureau of Reclamation selects Harmony to receive $300,000 in federal funding to develop a pilot-scale batch desalting process. More details to come. Reclamation press release
November 7
The Circular City team brings home the top prize ($2M CAD) of the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) Pop-Up City contest. Our batch RO process was used to minimize liquid waste and produce potable water from recycled wastewater. The team, led by Innocorps Research Corporation, will split the prize. Harmony logs | Contest website | Innocorps press release | CAF video | IDEaS blog
September 30
Batch water treatment wins the Water & Technical Innovation: Consumables & Chemicals Impact Medal at the inaugural Global Prize in Desalination. The award comes with $50,000 cash and piloting support with SWCC. GPID press release | Trade Arabia article | Pitch | Slides
August 18
The Cade Prize announces us as one of 21 Fibonacci Finalists in the 2023 edition of their prize. We are one of three finalists in the Agriculture and Environmental category. Learn more.
July 25
We concluded a year of testing our first field prototype at the Water Quality Improvement Center (Yuma, AZ). Our upgraded system, el Titan brine concentrator, ships up to Alberta, Canada to recycle wastewater for the final portion of the Pop-Up City Contest.
April 20
Harmony announced as a Circularity semifinalist in Year 2 of SEMI’s Startups for Sustainability program. We will meet with mentors from the semiconductor industry and deliver a final pitch in June. Finalists will be announced at SEMICON West in July. Press release
2022 ↑
September 9
The Bureau of Reclamation announces the Olin-Harmony-MIT team as winners of the national “More Water Less Concentrate” challenge. The team splits a $150,000 grand prize. Reclamation press release | Olin press release | Harmony update
August 18
Harmony commences a 113 day test of batch RO at the Water Quality Improvement Center of the Yuma Desalting Plant. Thank you to the operators of the YDP, the staff at the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center for making this possible.
August 2
The Olin-Harmony-MIT team concludes a week-long demonstration of batch RO at the Yuma Desalting Plant as part of the More Water Less Concentrate Challenge. Our 1 gpm system reduced RO brine volume by 83% with 92% uptime. Test data | Report
March 2
Harmony is accepted into the second cohort of the BLUE Excelerator. Demo day pitch
2021 ↑
July 15
Harmony is part of a team awarded $115k by the US Bureau of Reclamation to build a batch RO pilot and test it at Yuma Desalting Plant in July 2022.
May 2
Co-founder Quantum Wei defends his PhD thesis on batch RO. Read it here.
2020 ↑
October 2
Harmony is a runner-up in the Cleantech Open Northeast.
August 3
Harmony co-founders feature on the MIT Energy Initiative Podcast. Listen here!
May 21
Harmony competes as a finalist in the MIT $100k Launch Competition.
April 24
Harmony wins runner-up in the MIT Clean Energy Prize. Watch the pitch
April 22
Harmony wins third place in the MIT Water Innovation Prize
