PRESS RELEASE

UV & Water as a new energy frontier

(As exposed in the “Conference on the Physics, Chemistry

and Biology of Water” Sophia, Bulgaria, October 2017)

Illatec Study Group is an international crowd-sourced team of scientists, inventors, engineers and
experienced agricultural experts that are looking for alternative energy sources, unusual water resources
such as atmospheric humidity and desert afforestation with succulents. Illatec is based in Lima, Peru.

In our proposal UV energy will be captured in small low-cost brine ponds. Incoming UV radiation is
photochemically processed by natural sensitizers and enzymes obtained from a succulent desert plant -
Aloe Vera - and generating Hydrogen Peroxide. The Hydrogen Peroxide will be precipitated with Lime
into Calcium Peroxide (CaO2). CaO2 has multiple industrial uses, including the capture of CO2. This
is not a new thing, except that our natural CaO2 generated “Capturer” also carries the translated UV
energy into it. This energy can be reconverted back to H2O2 as an energy source and Oxygen as a
source for enriching air in carbon fuel based energy plants. When capturing CO2, the CaO2 is turned
into CaCO3 that can be used in various industrial processes. Economically, the energy carried by CaO2
will pay not only the trip from origin to destination, but the neutralization of CO2 into an innocuous
solid will be much cheaper than other Carbon Capture methods.

Obviously as UV intensity is not the same worldwide, the above scheme will be initially restricted to
high UV places like the deserts and highlands of the Central Andes where the UV Index can be as high
as 17 and in some zones even over 20. The Peruvian coastal desert is considered as the prime place.
The reason is that there are millions of hectares available. Using only small water resources, succulents
can be planted and harvested to supply UV reagents and also atmospheric water can be collected by the
xerophitic plants. This makes a virtuous cycle where the CO2 released by calcining Limestone is
captured by the plants. Irrigation water can be collected and separated from the hygroscopic brine.
Precipitated CaO2 becomes thus a Carbon Neutral bulk commodity.

The low cost brine ponds will make use of photochemically active Anthraquinones and enzymes
obtained from Aloe. In general terms, the Aloe plant is harvested and “deconstructed” and its liquids
solvated in a CaCl2 brine acting as a UV energy “translator”. We found that our plant deconstruction
method, “relieves” the plant reagents by not wasting energy for generating cellulose, lignin and
polysaccharides needed for “building up” the plant. Therefore, our reagents become very active in the
brine.

This process comes from more than four years of experimentation, that lead to the discovery of the
photochemical activity of the reagents in the plant, and its successful use in brines.

Pedro Flecha
Illatec Study Group
Lima, Peru
pedroflecha@yahoo.com