Odessa company's cool technology on cutting edge

It's been six months since Pasco County commissioners invested in local high-tech company Dais Analytic's new air-conditioning system. And that investment could pay off in spades.

"We are very much at an inflection point," Dais President Tim Tangredi said Friday after arriving home from a "financial road show," where he set out to raise $15 million in capital.

In December, Pasco County awarded Dais a $254,500 grant to help develop the air-conditioning product. Now Dais has a prototype of the NanoAir system working in its Odessa showroom. The company uses its patented plastic film, called Aqualyte, and water to produce a system it says is three times more efficient than traditional HVAC units.

"This is 21st-century technology," Tangredi said. "It heats and cools without using any refrigerant."

In exchange for the grant, Pasco County will get a stake in the new venture — as much as $1 million in royalties after the product goes on sale.

The same technology can be used for refrigerators and freezers.

"People tend to think of energy consumption in terms of gasoline, but the truth is Americans consume twice the energy in HVAC and refrigeration as they do from driving," Tangredi said. "It's a $249 billion industry."

The NanoAir units will be more compact than traditional HVAC units and will lower heating and cooling costs by as much as 57 percent, Tangredi said. "The savings are huge. And it doesn't break because there are no moving parts."

He predicts that within six years, NanoAir will make up 25 percent of all new heating and cooling systems. By 2025, the product could replace traditional mechanical systems entirely.

NanoAir is just one product Dais is developing using its Aqualyte film. Because the plastic is solid matter that filters water at the molecular level, it can be used for water purification.

Dais has developed NanoClear, a water filtration system, to convert saltwater, brackish water and even industrial wastewater into safe drinking water.

"It's 1,000-times cleaner than what's coming out of your faucet today," Tangredi said.

Company officials continue to work under a $200 million contract with a Chinese company, Genertec-America, to develop a sewer plant in China that uses Dais' plastic film to filter pollution from human wastewater. The product also filters wastewater from a blue jean factory and a pharmaceutical company.

"They're testing, and it continues to produce (pure) water," Tangredi said. "We're expecting an announcement this summer from China on a decision about whether they're going to go forward with building the full plant."

The plant would be able to filter 140,000 metric tons of water daily, he said. Dais has promised to create up to 1,000 jobs through its Genertec-America contract.