YSATÎ at a glance (YSATÎ means pure water in Guarani language - the people who lived in Brazil prior America discovery).

Products and services: Industrial wastewater treatment reuse and organic-mineral fertilizer production

Customers: ethanol distilleries processing sugar cane in South America

Benefits: Substantial reduction of potassium fertilizers purchases, elimination of relevant infrastructure and associated operational costs, elimination of high environmental risks and possibility to increase ethanol production
Market potential: 200 large distilleries producing 360 million m3/year of industrial wastewater and 18% of the current potassium fertilizers’ market in Brazil.

Competitive advantages: first move advantages, relevant technology, proprietary industrial secrecy, “green patent” requested in 2009, global leaders of technologies used as suppliers, team members as top references for technologies employed, technology listed as full priority by the Brazilian Federal Government, innovative commercial model for sugar-cane industry, customers’ orders in place ready for contracts’ execution and granted financial resources for business expansion from BNDES (National Development Bank)

Business Model: direct sale’s channel, long-term (20 years) service contracts, Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) equipment financing model

Competitors, Technological Positioning and Substitutes: traditional evaporation technologies and current wastewater disposal practice are the current solutions available. YSATÎ introduces new technologies not used yet in the industry with large cost advantages. Processing of wastewater uses a unique unitary process configuration sequence of existing technologies and the use of specific chemicals chosen selected through proprietary software. Continuous research shall grant YSATÎ permanent processing costs advantages while current and future patents shall provide freedom-to-operate within our market. There are several other technologies that may create additional value from the same wastewater, which actually do not compete with YSATÎ but are synergistic with YSATI, increasing customers’ benefits

Growth Strategy: YSATÎ has already orders through LOIs (letters of intent), that represent already 50% of initial sales’ plan for the first 10 years of operation. However, execution of these contracts obeys a conservative ramp up curve and financial constraints for the start-up, mainly initial equity to support pre-operational period. BNDES and Private Equities as senior lenders will support each expansion under BOT system.

Ethanol is seen as a solution for sustainable development in the production of fuels. What few may know is that the production of ethanol results in large amounts of a highly pollutant and corrosive industrial wastewater flow: vinasse. Vinasse is the result of the distillation process after sugar cane juice fermentation and receives significant amount of sulphuric acid during the process. Vinasse also has a very high level of COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) and BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand). The production of ethanol in Brazil has reached 28 billion liters. For every liter of ethanol produced, 13 liters of vinasse are left over. There is an estimate of 364 billion liters of vinasse per year (364 million m3) that have to be stocked and sprinkled onto the sugar cane fields during the period of soil fertilization. Besides being pollutant, vinasse generates high storage and transport costs, with tankers sprinkling it onto the fields surrounding the plant through irrigation.