washington business
Peter Janicki and
Bill Gates share a laugh
and glasses of pure
drinking water from
the prototype Omni
Processor. A video from
this exchange went
viral online.
at a glance
How does the Omni Processor
create electricity and clean water
from sewage? The magic, says
Janicki Bionergy co-founder Peter
Janicki, is separating the energy-rich
sludge from the water, and powering
the whole process by its own energy.
A more detailed explanation from
the company’s website:
“The heat from combustion within a
fluidized sand bed is utilized to
generate high-pressure steam
that is expanded in a reciprocating
piston steam engine connected to a
generator, producing electricity. The
exhaust from this engine (process
heat) is used to dry the incoming
fecal sludge. The water that is
evaporated out of the sludge is then
treated to meet clean drinking water
standards. The combustion gases are
treated as necessary to meet local
emission standards.”
28 association of washington business
Janicki Industries is a world leader in advanced composites and precision machine tooling.
Now company co-founder Peter Janicki is hoping to change the world again — this time
by turning human waste into two valuable resources: electricity and pure, clean water.
His newest enterprise, Janicki Bioenergy, has already made a big splash.
In January, Bill Gates featured the company and its water treatment machine, the
Janicki Omni Processor, on his Gates Notes blog — including a video of the Microsoft
co-founder taking a satisfied sip from a glass of water that had, five minutes before,
been human feces.
“I am very impressed with the solution we’re seeing here. It generates electricity
and it generates clean water,” Gates said on the video, which has more than 2.8 million
views on YouTube. He later added on his blog: “The water tasted as good as any I’ve
had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink
it every day. It’s that safe.”
That video went viral and led to an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy
Fallon, which saw Gates and the talk show host both drinking glasses of the purified
water and pronouncing it better than bottled.
“That’s as pure as any water you’ve ever had,” Gates told an incredulous Fallon.
“It tasted really good!” the talk
show host replied.
All that TV time — and the irresistible
headlines about the world’s richest
man drinking “poop water” — shot the
Omni Processor to global fame.
“The publicity that we got was
overwhelming,” Janicki told Washington
Business, “and very helpful.”
— Bill Gates, co-founder of the
The new company already has
Gates Foundation and Microsoft, about
orders for the Omni Processor from
the purified water created from sewage
more than 75 countries, and has been
in Janicki Bioenergy’s Omni Processor
“The water tasted as good as any
I’ve had out of a bottle. And having
studied the engineering behind it,
I would happily drink it every day.
It’s that safe.”