Nano Bubble Oxidation Technology
The whole platform rests on one physical fact: a small enough bubble stops leaving.
Put air through a diffuser at the bottom of a tank and you get a rising curtain of bubbles. Most of that gas reaches the surface and returns to the atmosphere. The bubble is a delivery vehicle with a few seconds of contact time, and its surface area is small relative to the gas it carries.
Shear the same gas volume into bubbles below roughly a micron and the behaviour changes completely. Buoyancy stops dominating. The bubbles carry a negative surface charge — measured in the literature at around −34 to −45 mV for oxygen nanobubbles — which keeps them from coalescing back into large bubbles. They stay in suspension. And because surface area scales against the cube of radius while volume scales against it directly, dividing a bubble into ever smaller bubbles multiplies the interface across which gas can cross into water.
The measured consequence is the number that matters. Work published in Science of the Total Environment on nanobubble aeration found the gas–liquid mass transfer coefficient rose roughly elevenfold against conventional bubbles for the same delivered gas volume.
That is the entire commercial argument for putting the equipment on a boat. You are not carrying enough gas to brute-force a bay. You are carrying gas that actually dissolves.
The stage, in order
- Intake and characterisation Water is drawn and read before anything is dosed — temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and the organic load that decides how much oxidant will be consumed doing nothing useful.
- Gas conditioning Oxygen, ozone or a blend, prepared at the concentration the read calls for. On a full programme the gases are part of the subscription rather than a separate procurement the client has to run.
- Nanobubble generation The gas is sheared into the sub-micron range in-line. This is the step that decides whether the oxygen ends up in the water column or in the air above the vessel.
- Oxidation, where it is called for For organic load — bloom material, biofilm, dissolved organics — an oxidative stage does work that oxygenation alone cannot. In bromide-rich seawater this stage is bounded by dose and contact time, not run open.
- Delivery at depth Treated, gas-charged water is returned into the layer that needs it. A surface treatment on a stratified estuary in August is theatre; the deficit is under the thermocline.
- Verification In-situ monitoring reads what actually changed, and the result feeds the next pass rather than a report written in November.
The seawater problem nobody should skip past
Ozone in seawater is not ozone in fresh water. Bromide is present at meaningful concentration and ozone reacts with it roughly eighty-three times faster than with chloride. The hypobromite that results can go on to form bromate, which is a regulated concern rather than an academic one.
The literature is clear about the controls: bromate formation is a function of ozone concentration, contact time, pH and temperature, and it is reduced by limiting the first two — with the honest caveat that limiting them also limits disinfection efficiency. There is a trade-off and it has to be operated, per site, against a measured background rather than a brochure.
We are explicit about this because the alternative — implying that seawater ozonation is consequence-free — is the kind of claim that ends a programme in its second season.
Where the science is still arguing
A 2020 study from Moleaer and Arizona State University reported that injected nanobubbles produce reactive oxygen species including hydroxyl radicals. A controlled study published in ACS ES&T Engineering in 2023 by Chae, Kim, Kim and Fortner found hydroxyl radical generation from nanobubbles to be minimal, if it occurred at all, under the ambient conditions they tested.
Both are real. They disagree. We build programmes on the mass-transfer result, which is not in dispute, and on the oxidation stage, which is engineered and measured — not on radical chemistry that a reviewer could reasonably challenge.
If that reads as a weaker claim than a competitor's, it is. It is also the one that will still be true after somebody checks.
Controls and data
A dose is a decision, and the decision is instrumented.
Fleet routing, water-column telemetry and earth observation are not a dashboard bolted on at the end. They decide where a hull goes tomorrow.
Hyperspectral and earth observation
Satellite and airborne ocean-colour work identifies where the water is changing before a shore-side sample would. It sets the search area; it does not set the dose.
In-situ monitoring
Water-column profiles at the point of treatment. Dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, pH and turbidity through depth, before and after each pass.
Predictive analytics
Risk surfaces for the coming days across the service zone, so a Deep Strike goes to forming water rather than to yesterday's headline.
Fleet routing
Vessel hours are the scarce resource in any programme. Routing is the difference between a fleet that covers a coastline and one that chases it.
Questions we get asked
Straight answers
What is a nanobubble?
A gas-filled bubble below roughly 1,000 nanometres in diameter. At that scale bubbles stop rising and bursting: they carry a negative surface charge, remain suspended for long periods, and present an enormous combined surface area for gas to cross into the water.
How much better is nanobubble aeration than conventional aeration?
A peer-reviewed study of nanobubble aeration measured the gas–liquid mass transfer coefficient rising approximately elevenfold against conventional bubbles for the same delivered gas volume. Site conditions vary. The mechanism does not.
Source: Science of the Total Environment — mass transfer of nanobubble aeration
Do nanobubbles generate hydroxyl radicals?
Genuinely unsettled, and the disagreement is between two serious pieces of work. A 2020 Moleaer and Arizona State University study reported reactive oxygen species including hydroxyl radicals from injected nanobubbles. A controlled 2023 study by Chae and colleagues in ACS ES&T Engineering found hydroxyl radical generation from nanobubbles was minimal, if present at all, under the ambient conditions tested.
We do not price a programme on radical chemistry we cannot demonstrate on site.
Does ozonating seawater create bromate?
It can. Ozone reacts with bromide far faster than with chloride, and the hypobromite produced can go on to form bromate. Formation depends on ozone dose, contact time, pH and temperature, and is controlled by limiting concentration and residence — not by hoping. On a SeaBreather this is a monitored operating parameter.
Does the treatment harm marine life in the treated water?
NOAA's National Centres for Coastal Ocean Science validated an ozone nanobubble aeration system on an eight-acre pond near Fort Myers Beach in 2018 and reported complete elimination of algae within 48 hours, with proper reoxygenation and no apparent harm to aquatic life. A separate NCCOS-affiliated evaluation of a nanobubble ozone ballast-water system found no statistically significant adverse residual toxicity in receiving water.
Both studies name other operators' equipment, not SeaBreather. They establish the mechanism. They do not establish our hull, and we will not present them as if they do.
Sources: NOAA NCCOS, 2018 · NOAA NCCOS, 2020
Can this replace fixing the catchment?
No. Nutrient loading is generated on land and it will be reduced on land or not at all. What in-water treatment buys is the seasons in between — the fisheries, the beaches, the intakes and the reef that would otherwise be written off while the upstream work is legislated, funded and built.
Next step
Bring us a water column, not a brief.
Depth profiles, season, what you have already tried. Alarivean returns a read on whether this platform is the right tool for that water — including when it is not.