Emerging markets face chronic shortages in plastic tanks for water storage, water processing, and septic and sewage treatment. These critical tools can improving health outcomes for millions of people, yet are unavailable or unaffordable in much of the emerging world.
The problem is manufacturing. Plastic tanks are typically made using rotational molding – a 50-year-old process that requires a factory with a reliable energy supply (typically natural gas and grid-tied electricity), a building and other infrastructure, and a substantial investment in molding machinery. Suitable factory sites often don’t exist in developing regions, and if they do then political or other factors may make the investment unappealing. The result is that most locations that can support a traditional tank manufacturing facility already have one – and many of these locations are far from the under-served markets.
Why not simply ship the tanks to where they’re needed? The challenge is logistics. Tanks are big, hollow, and relatively low in value. For the cost to transport a single water tank to a remote area you could ship hundreds of mobile phones. The cost of a water tank might double once delivered 300 Km from the factory, while the cost of a mobile phone might only increase 5%.
So this is the problem: tanks are desperately needed in developing regions, it’s hard to put new factories in or near these areas, and it’s too costly to ship the tanks from factories to these
SRM systems have produced thousands of parts for industrial and government customers, and have operated commercially since 2014. The process can be deployed in most sunny regions of the world – over 49% of the earth’s land area.