Moby Filters is a water technology company developing a modular, closed-loop filtration system designed to capture micro- and nano-plastics (MNPs) generated by businesses that wash or manufacture textiles, before those particles enter wastewater streams and affect environmental and human health.
The system integrates dual-stage techniques, embedded sensors, and self-cleaning automation to enable real-time particle capture across a wide size range at high volumetric flow rates, helping facilities reduce sewage utility bills through reduced pollutant discharge and on-site water reuse. Existing commercial technologies are inadequate: limited by sub-micron filtration incapability, insufficient flow throughput, or excessive maintenance burden under industrial conditions.
Moby's technology is validated to achieve 99.9% capture efficiency at 10 µm while maintaining 1.2 gal/s flow rate, a benchmark 10x faster than any comparable system. Stage A Primary captures particles in the 80 to 240 µm range; Stage B Secondary targets particles down to 0.1 µm. This project's goal is to advance the system's capture to ≥0.5 µm while maintaining ≥1.2 gal/s flow rate.
Moby is actively piloting in a number of locations, with additional deployments underway nationally. Building on the integration of both stages into a single pre-commercial unit under the prior CoE award, this grant funds the engineering, coordination, and analytical testing required to transition the system into a commercially manufacturable product.