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| W.S. Darley’s new dual-use Purfection Series water purification and sanitation system will be demonstrated at FDIC this month. |
Imagine you’re on the scene of an emergency or natural disaster and there is no potable water available, either for first response crews or the citizens they are trying to help.
That’s the scenario that spurred the folks at W.S. Darley & Co. to take a long look at how first responders might overcome the difficulties of providing clean, fresh water at any emergency scene, whether it be wildland fires, floods, earthquakes or hurricanes.
Firefighters are usually the first responders who people call when faced with an emergency or other disaster-type situation, even though fire may not be involved, noted Darley Vice President Peter Darley. So, he said it made sense to the company’s leadership to provide the tools necessary to purify water if the need arose.
W.S. Darley has been making water purification systems for several years now and offers a range of models, including units that can be retrofitted. The company has sold them to the military, municipalities, health departments and charitable organizations for disaster relief, but has not yet sold any for use by fire departments.
“The fire service is slow to change, but a lot of chiefs and other fire officials have told us this is a great idea, especially integrating the water purification unit with pump modules,” Darley said. “As the economy improves, we think we’ll be seeing the market for the units strengthen too.”
The water purification idea emerged in 2005 with a U.S. military request for proposals to develop a prototype. Ohler Pumps, which is owned by W.S. Darley, accepted the challenge and had to meet detailed criteria set forth by the Marine Corps to develop a stand-alone water purification unit that could fit on a Humvee.
Darley said his company, working with Ohler Pumps, designed, built, tested and demonstrated a unit for the Marine Corps, but did not get the contract to produce the units.
“We began thinking that if we could build this very complicated water purification unit for the Marines, maybe we could build less complicated units for the civilian and emergency markets and integrate them with the pumping systems we’ve been building for 80 years,” Darley said.
In 2007 his company developed its first unit for the emergency and civilian markets – the suitcase-sized 3S3P PuriFire portable unit that offered simplicity and compactness. It has washable screen filters, ultraviolet light disinfection and is compatible with 12 volts or 24 volts DC and can be powered by a vehicle battery or cigarette lighter connection. The unit weighs 49 pounds and measures 25 by 20 by 9 inches.
In 2008, the company developed what Darley called the “world’s first fire truck-integrated water purification system,” the 4S10F PuriFire unit. Darley’s engineers took one of their pump modules with a pump, controls, plumbing, operator’s panel and two top cross lays, and integrated the water purification system into it.
“There was a narrow dead space on top of the module where we were able to put the components,” Darley said. “There’s a special panel on the passenger side of the truck to operate the water purification unit, while the driver’s side still has the traditional pump panel.”
Darley noted that his engineers can integrate a water purification unit with any pump system made by his company or others and offer different size and capability units from which to choose.
Max Meng, an environmental engineer who oversees the development of purification projects for W.S. Darley, said the company found it could save costs on water purification units by using common parts across the different types of units being developed.
“We found we could build a system with functionality for the emergency market,” he said, “and not take much space away from fighting fires.”
Meng pointed out that W.S. Darley also markets retrofit kits with pressure and flow regulators that can be used with any centrifugal pump.
He said the company makes seven different water purification units, which can produce 3,600 gallons of clean potable water a day (working 20 hours a day) for the suitcase unit, and up to 12,000 gallons of water a day for its largest system.
Other units offered by W. S. Darley are a 3S3S skid unit, a 7S10P self-contained model, a military 7S2P version for the humvee, a S3200 dual system and a 3-in-1 Darley PuriFire Solution.
“The Darley PuriFire Solution has water purification, packaging and distribution all together on a large trailer system that can be brought to a remote location where trucks bringing bottled water might not be able to get to,” Darley said. “It’s essentially a mini-factory to purify water.”
The S3200 dual system, he pointed out, can purify either fresh water or water from salt or brackish sources.
W.S. Darley will introduce a new Purfection Series System this spring that doubles as a water purification and sanitation system without using chemicals. Peter Darley said the new series will be demonstrated at Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) in Indianapolis this month.
Purfection Series Systems, he said, will give first responders the ability to disinfect almost anything, protecting them from infectious diseases. He said the system is designed so part of it can be used for everyday station use, yet combined when needed for disaster purposes.
Gene Lednicky, general manager of Neel Fire Protection Apparatus in Waco, Texas, which builds fire trucks, purchased a 3S3P portable unit last year and donated it to the Waco Mission, which took it to Haiti on a charitable mission. Lednicky said he was so impressed by the reports coming back from Haiti about the abilities of the water purification unit that he is purchasing a second portable unit to give to another charitable group.
In addition, Lednicky said he is considering buying a pump module version from W.S. Darley to put on a tanker he’s building for a fire department with a 500-gpm pump and 2,000-gallon tank.
While W.S. Darley has not sold a water purification unit to the fire market yet, Peter Darley said he remains confident that it will happen.
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