Water Treatment Capability

CAST is a modular water pretreatment unit that installs ahead of existing or planned treatment, is delivered as a service rather than a capital purchase, and is always proven first on the client's own water in a paid pilot. It does not replace a system's core treatment or its operator. It protects those assets, extends their life, and helps turn compromised sources and treated effluent into dependable water. This overview sets out, in one place, what CAST does and where it fits across the water sector.

Several pressures now bearing on water systems are, at their core, problems of water quality — which is where pretreatment helps.

• Constituents of concern that resist treatment. PFAS, fine and colloidal suspended solids, oils, organics, and metals overload conventional processes and foul the media and membranes behind them.
• Sources under stress. Drought, saline intrusion, and declining source quality force more water to be recovered from harder, more variable feeds.
• Tightening discharge limits. Rising limits on PFAS, suspended solids, oil and grease, and metals, alongside growing expectations for reuse and freshwater reduction.
• Effluent that should be a resource. Treated wastewater is largely discharged rather than reused, even as tertiary treatment and reuse policy expand.
• Treatment that is expensive to run. Media replacement, membrane fouling, chemical dosing, and disposal are the recurring costs that pretreatment is built to cut.

CAST stands for Capillary Action Separation Technology. It is a pretreatment unit that installs ahead of a system's existing or planned treatment and improves the performance and economics of whatever sits behind it. The train combines four stages, matched to the water: hydrophilic capillary separation that lifts fine particles, oils, and organics at low energy; selective ion exchange that captures target organics, PFAS, and metals; an optional granular activated carbon polish; and integrated sensors and software for low-touch operation. Three characteristics matter for any water program:

• Units only and modular. Field-deployable skids that scale by adding capacity for phased or distributed needs.
• Matched to the water. A treatment train configured for the specific water chemistry rather than a fixed one-size package.
• Delivered as a service. A lease-plus-usage basis that shifts spending from the capital budget to the operating budget and makes it fast to pilot.

In every case the pattern is the same: CAST protects, rather than replaces, the treatment investments a system already operates or plans.

The ranges below are what CAST is expected to deliver, based on bench and pilot experience. They are indicative, not a specification, and are confirmed per water matrix in a pilot.

Water-recovery gains assume a downstream high-recovery or closed-circuit reverse- osmosis stage. Dissolved salts pass through CAST and are addressed downstream. All values are expected, bench- and pilot-based ranges and are site-specific.

Illustrative alignment only; scope and results are confirmed on the specific stream in a pilot.

• Independent bench testing. In independent third-party bench-scale column testing, adding CAST ahead of ion exchange extended run length more than eightfold before breakthrough and delayed PFOS breakthrough past the 4 ng/L threshold, while reducing column fouling. Longer runs cut media replacement, the single largest recurring cost.
• CAST is pretreatment, not standalone PFAS removal. Public third-party evidence cited here is the ECT2 (now Onterris) RSSCT bench evaluation of CAST ahead of ion exchange (media life / breakthrough). Full-train field outcomes are confirmed on a paid pilot for each matrix and are not substituted for that bench claim on this page.
• Federal recognition. CAST received a Department of the Air Force SBIR Phase I award for PFAS/PFOS water remediation.
• Patent pending. CAST is patent pending. United States non-provisional and Patent Cooperation Treaty applications were filed on February 19, 2026.
• Pilots underway. Paid pilots are running now across municipal and industrial settings, with third-party performance testing completed.

• Not disinfection. CAST reduces the load on disinfection and improves its efficiency, but it does not replace chlorination, UV, or a utility's public-health barrier.
• Not standalone desalination. CAST reduces a share of dissolved solids depending on chemistry; removing salt to potable levels is done by a downstream membrane stage.
• Site-specific. Removal figures depend on the source water. We do not carry one site's numbers onto another; we measure them in a pilot.
• Complementary. CAST is designed to strengthen existing plants and operators, not to compete with them. It removes and concentrates constituents of concern such as PFAS; it does not destroy them.

• Water as a service. Lease-plus-usage rather than a capital purchase, so spending sits in the operating budget and scales with use. The model fits public-private and blended-finance structures.
• Pilot first. CAST is proven on the actual target water before any scale commitment, with removal, breakthrough, and recovery documented.
• Modular and scalable. Begin with a single unit on one stream; add capacity as results justify, phased or distributed as the program requires.

1. Share representative water data. A few weeks of characterization for a candidate stream: flow, total suspended solids, turbidity, chemical oxygen demand, oil and grease, and metals.
2. A 60-minute scoping call. To define pilot goals, tie-in points, and a sampling plan on the target stream.
3. A one-page value case. Built from current treatment, disposal, and chemical costs for that stream.
4. A paid on-site pilot. CAST run on the real stream, documenting removal, breakthrough, and recovery before any scale decision.

Flotration Technologies

• Chris Fetters, CEO/CTO — chris@flotration.com
• John Michaels, COO — john@flotration.com