The story started in 2015, when Bill Wu, the founder decided that he wanted to make his backyard look better, in which about 600 square feet of land had been used to convert organic waste and to grow vegetables.
Bill started with putting in paving slabs around the house and building a shed later. After he finished the works, he had a lot of extra soil on the land and needed to decide what to do with that soil.
Searching on Youtube, Bill got the first possible solution, raised wicking beds. As he was looking at those, he noticed videos about Aquaponics that caught his attention immediately. He decided to add an Aquaponics unit, though it doesn’t help solving the extra soil problem.
In Aquaponics, there normally is a filter for separating solid waste and a bioreactor for degrading ammonia, etc., but this bioreactor doesn’t accept organic solid waste. In searching for a composter to deal with the waste issue, some compost tea brewer videos inspired Bill to consider that a composting bioreactor could be integrated with Aquaponics to receive and recycle biodegradable solid waste and wastewater from both Aquaponics and other sources.
By November of 2015, the “integrated bioreactor” idea was organized in Bill’s mind, and he came up with the word “CompoPonics”, derived from the meanings of Composting + Aquaponics. He registered the word “CompoPonics” as a domain name and as a trademark both in Canada and in the United States.
From then on, Bill started to design the bioreactor and talked with a patent attorney in February 2016 to file a patent application. It was clear that the bioreactor would process both solid waste and wastewater.
When Bill later thought about how to heat a greenhouse, he managed to integrate a stove unit into the bioreactor system for using the “harder waste” such as a tree trunk that cannot otherwise be used in a regular composting chamber.
As the weather warmed up Bill began building a CompoPonics DEMO system and a greenhouse in his backyard. The experiment started in late July when Tilapia fingerlings were put into the fish tanks. The work continued through early December. Problems were identified and resolved. The most challenging problem was to drive the flu gas from the stove chimney into the extension wicking bed. This was solved after four duct fans had burned and were broken.
The DEMO system re-started to operate from April of 2017. Tilapias were moved in May. All kitchen waste from Bill’s household has been fed into the bioreactor since August of 2016. The health of both the tilapias and vegetables proves the success of the system operation.
Bill started working on prototyping the CompoPonics idea and designing bioreactors for household uses from July of 2017. At that time, one issue that bothered Bill most was to design and fabricate the agitators.
The first version of agitators Bill had designed could improve efficiency for agitating in low-speed rotation. However, this version still has the same limitations and problems as other conventional agitators, including:
Only the torque produced by the driven motor is used for rotating the contents inside a container;
The others such us sound waves, vibrations and heat produced by the motor are not useful but burdens that need to be specially managed;
The contents inside a container are usually over-agitated, the contents are moved more than required for well de-lumping and aerating;
They normally employ high voltage (AC110V or AC220V) powered motors, when solar panels are employed for the power source of the motors electricity undergoes loss during inverting from DC12V into AC110V or AC220V;
For small-sized bioreactor containers, there is not enough space on the top lid for installing an agitation motor for vessels with a sectional diameter less than 2.5 feet when there is a feed module sitting on the top lid;
These agitators only fit for vertical and horizontal cylinder containers, they don’t fit for square or rectangular cuboid containers; and
Normally only one motor is installed for driving the agitating mechanism, when the only motor is broken it requires immediate service.
Bill then had to stop prototyping the bioreactors but to focus on brainstorming new ideas to design an agitator that can solve the above limitations and problems. Bill started working on the idea of vibrations from late August of 2017. Experiments on different structures during the last months of 2017 led to an inventive idea of resonant vibratory agitation.
Bill started paper works from January of 2018 and filed a WIPO PCT patent application (Apparatus for Resonant Vibratory Agitating) on March 12, 2018, with International Application No. PCT/CA2018/050295.
Bill resumed working on prototyping from April of 2018 with the invention of the resonant vibratory agitator. Comparing with the first version of agitators, CompoPonics bioreactors with the resonant vibratory agitator driven by solar DC 12V will be less expensive, easier for installation/ operation/ maintenance, and acceptable to a wider range of customer audience.
A full prototype of CompoPonics Bioreactor System 1000 (CBS1000) has been ready since December of 2018. 10 units of CBS1000 MVP (minimum viable product) will be available for sale in May of 2019.
