ANCASTER – The provincial government is betting $1.3 million on a local company’s water treatment technology.

The investment as announced Friday morning under Ontario’s Innovation Demonstration Fund. The program helps finance the process of turning an idea that works in a lab into a product that’s ready for the market.

Fibracast Ltd. is in the membrane filtration business, producing a system that uses a flat sheet of membrane material to filter out the impurities and turn waste water into drinking water.

The public money is a forgivable loan – if Fibracast’s technology can be shown to work and the company locates its manufacturing operation here the loan will be written off. The payoff for the province in 10 jobs during the testing phase and the chance of another 60 by next year.

MPP Ted McMeekin announced the loan and said such support is a key part of building Ontario’s much-discussed “green” economy.

John Tomescu, Fibracast CEO, said the company’s technology has the potential to cut the cost of membrane water treatment in half, opening vast new markets for technology that’s more effect than traditional treatment methods.

The public support, he added, was one of the reasons he chose to locate the company here rather than in California where the technology was developed.

“This kind of support is an amazing way of helping us bridge the research and commercialization phases of this project,” he said.

This article is for personal use only courtesy of TheSpec.com – a division of Metroland Media Group Ltd.