Innovative Synthetic Diamond Electrochemical Treatment Solution for Wastewater Receives Top Honor in the Environmental Quality Category

SANTA CLARA (April 24, 2017)—Element Six, a world leader in synthetic diamond supermaterials and member of The De Beers Group of Companies, announced today that its DIAMOX™ wastewater treatment technology earned top honors in the Edison Awards, winning the gold prize in the environmental quality category. Winners were announced at the 30th annual Edison Awards ceremony held in New York on April 20, 2017. The Edison Award is one of the most prestigious accolades for innovation and recognizes excellence in new product and service development, marketing, human-centered design and innovation.

Designed to treat highly contaminated industrial wastewater, DIAMOX is an electrochemical cell that utilizes synthetic industrial diamond electrodes to mineralize dissolved pollutants in the water. Previous methods for cleaning such contaminated wastewater have typically involved using electrochemical cells, with additional UV and strong bleach-like chemicals in a multi-step process. DIAMOX enables this process to become purely electrochemical, which is simpler and safer to operate, cost effective and more environmentally sustainable. Pilot studies of DIAMOX have demonstrated that this single step process can treat the water to a degree that it is safe to put back into the environment. It is successful in treating even the most formidable industrial wastewaters that are difficult or impossible to treat by conventional means.

“DIAMOX was born from more than 20 years of research into electrochemical oxidation and Element Six’s expertise in manufacturing and engineering synthetic diamond supermaterials,” said Daniel Twitchen, head of CVD business development at Element Six. “We are honored to receive this prestigious accolade for DIAMOX, a versatile technology that is effective on most types of effluent—offering multiple industries a new and relatively simple on-site solution to treat their highly contaminated wastewaters without additional chemical dosing with hazardous materials.”

To date, DIAMOX technology has been successfully used for the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater, textile dye house wastewater treatments, and refinery spent caustics treatment.

For a complete list of Edison Awards winners, please visit http://www.edisonawards.com/winners2017.php.