The MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) initiative by ESA (the European Space Agency) aims to develop the technology for a future regenerative life support system for long term human space missions.

HydrOhm was incorporated in 2020, as a spin-off company of Ghent University and the MELiSSA program of the European Space Agency (ESA).

HydrOhm’s core technology, developed within the MELiSSA POMP program, is called URIDIS™. It stabilizes urine, using only electricity as an input, and does not require addition of any chemicals. The design of the cell itself is also innovative and it is the object of the patent owned by the company (WO2021152090A).

URIDIS is a system for building-level treatment of urine. Urine is a nutrient-rich waste stream, but today these nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen and salt) are a challenge to remove/recover once mixed in with all other wastewater. URIDIS locally treats the urine and produces a disinfectant for toilet flushing.
The system is intended for public toilets and for non-residential sustainable buildings with relevant scale (>1000 toilet visits per day), such as airports, sport and entertainment venues, educational and governmental buildings, etc…
The benefit for the client is in savings on operational costs for the toilets (water savings and savings on toilet cleaning and maintenance). There is a considerable external benefit related to more hygienic toilets (user experience) and lower load of the building on the wastewater system (lower nutrient emission). The system is the first in its kind to work without added chemicals.

Thanks to the support of ESA Tech Broker Belgium, first through a proof-of-concept project in 2020 and then through a demonstrator project in 2022, the company has developed and tested the technology, making great advancements towards its commercialization.
Now multiple units have been deployed in parallel with launching customers and the company is gearing up to commercially scale the product further.