The sister company of Owen Sound based Hydrogen Optimized is significantly expanding the production capacity of its heavy water plant in Collingwood.
Isowater Corporation is ramping up its deuterium oxide plant to produce 20 tonnes a year, with an aim to eventually produce 100 tonnes a year.
Its heavy water can be used in the life sciences in labs and research, as well as in semiconductors, OLED displays (organic light emitting diodes) and fibre optics. Stuart says OLED displays can be found in smart phones and TV screens.
Ted Stuart is Isowater Corporation’s Chief Development Officer, and is also Vice President of both Isowater and Hydrogen Optimized, which are all under the umbrella of Key DH Technologies.
Stuart says, “This is something very unique.” explaining, “To put this on a scale, our competitors tend to be governments. Our competitors tend to be national institutions that are focused on producing heavy water for their nuclear programs. To my knowledge, Isowater corporation is the first company to say we’re going to be producing heavy water for the private sector and has developed its own technology and process for that purpose.”
He says they’re the only company that has ‘pure play’ in it. That means they focus exclusively on that product.
Isowater is a member of the newly launched Southwestern Ontario Isotope Coalition which held an event in Owen Sound earlier this week. That coalition aims to build a strong, locally supported supply chain and strong advocacy for isotopes.
Stuart says Isowater has been planning its expansion for years. He says Isowater formed in 2009, and moved to its current location in 2018. In January of 2023, they announced a significant breakthrough in their proprietary D2X TM with their first output of market-grade deuterium oxide.
Isowater now serves customers in over 20 countries.
Meanwhile, Stuart says another sister company of Isowater and Hydrogen Optimized, deutraMed is obtaining the patents for an invention which acts as a stabilizing platform for MRNA vaccines and therapeutics, and doesn’t require the use of a freezer at -40 degrees.
He says, “We made an invention using deuterium where you can store it in a normal refrigerator and it lasts five times as long as it would last otherwise.”
He says deutraMed has made several patents in the past year on the subject and is currently in talks to licence the technology to companies that are interested in rolling it out. He says it can enable vaccines to travel further in the world to and be used in places where keeping them at -40 degrees was too difficult.
Key DH Technologies, the parent company to Hydrogen Optimized, Isowater and deutraMed employs roughly 100 people who live around the region, from southern Bruce to eastern Grey and beyond.
