MULBERRY — A nondescript warehouse tucked a few hundred feet away from Kid Ellis Road in Mulberry houses a machine that, according to its makers, could revolutionize the water industry.

Titan Water Technologies, 160 Kid Ellis Road, was established in January. Nearly a year after its inception, the water purification company is ready to begin sharing the fruits of its labor with the rest of the world.

The company is spearheaded by CEO Derek Kenney, Chief Services Officer Scott White and Chief Technology Officer Keith Ervin.

“So far, people know about us through word of mouth,” Kenney said. “Keith’s been working on this technology for years, and he’s been talking to people in the Midwest.”

“It’s kinda crazy we’re in Mulberrry,” White added.

Titan Water Technologies uses a proprietary blend of naturally occurring minerals and elements, specialty ion exchange resins and ultraviolet light to remove a superior range of contaminants — including heavy metals, pesticides, harmful microorganisms and more — from water sources.

Kenney, 35, is a Lakeland native who earned an environmental science degree from Florida State in 2005. White, 36, is an Orlando native who moved to Polk for his last year of high school and established his own residential construction company after graduating from Bartow High School.

The duo, who had formed a company called Titan Environmental & Construction in 2013, became aware of the Wisconsin-based Ervin’s water-treatment work during a presentation in Lakeland in fall 2015.

“We sat in on the meeting and told one of the investors, ‘This is a home run,’” Kenney said. “It’s 10 years beyond any technology that’s out there as far as water treatment.”

Ervin began working on the water treatment technology about nine years ago and filed a patent about five years ago, according to Kenney and White. Upon establishing Titan Water Technologies early this year, the pair purchased Ervin’s patent and filed another patent for the current mobile water treatment system.

The unit sits atop a trailer inside Titan’s Mulberry warehouse, which allows the company to transport the water purification system to clients who want to see it in action.

Lakeland-based PhosLab Environmental Services in Lakeland has provided third-party testing of water samples purified by Titan’s system.

“Their water-filtration product is very impressive,” said George Fernandez, vice president of PhosLab. “We work with a lot of different clients who are in the process of launching new products, but this is the first time we’ve come across something quite this unique.

“The LED/UV technology is probably the part that sticks out the most.”

Titan Water Technologies maintains the lighting technology in its system can purify water at a 275-nanometer wavelength.

“Currently, anyone who’s close to that has a 254-nanometer wavelength, so they can’t claim a full reduction in bacteria,” Kenney said. “We can replace municipalities having to use chlorine and other chemicals to treat water before they deliver it back to the public.

“We’d love to see that and wastewater treatment facilities go away.”

Kenney and White said Titan Water Technologies currently has about 50 clients, including distilleries, mining companies, and municipalities. So far, the company is largely working with municipalities in the Midwest, where Ervin has been laying the groundwork for his system for almost a decade.

“We finalized the patent transfer about two months ago,” Kenney said. “We haven’t even brought it to anyone here.”

Bill Anderson, assistant director of water utilities for the city of Lakeland, doubts Titan’s water purification system would be a fit for Lakeland.

“I’ve heard of UV treatments, and I’m not sure if that would be doable on a large scale,” said Anderson, who said the city of Lakeland treats more than 13 million gallons of water a day.

White said Titan’s system, which has a 10-foot-by-53-foot footprint, can treat more than 4 million gallons per day.

“We’ve got an infrastructure in place, capital dollars in the system, and we have a responsibility to our taxpayers to provide the most cost-effective treatment,” said Anderson, who said he is nevertheless very open-minded about Titan’s services. “I would love to hear what they have to say.”

As Titan Water Technologies nears its one-year anniversary, Kenney said the company is right on track.

“We had one year budgeted to complete building the machine and getting it to market,” said Kenney, who added that construction for the first mobile unit took about eight months. “We’ve got it nailed down, designed, and configured to where we can probably do it in four weeks.”

Kenney said the plan is for future units — both mobile and potentially larger stationary water-purification systems — to be manufactured locally by Titan Environmental & Construction.

“We want to keep everything in our hometown,” White said.

According to data from Water.org, $260 billion is lost globally each year to lack of safe water and sanitation. Additionally, universal access to safe water and sanitation would result in $32 billion in economic benefits because of reductions in health-care costs and increased productivity from reduced illness.

Although the company’s current focus is working with municipalities and mining clients, Kenney said the company can also bring its mobile water-purification unit to provide disaster relief. The company is also working on a low-energy consumption desalination process and has been in contact with potential clients in Africa, since it can produce drinkable water from waste.

It’s early yet for Titan, but Kenney said he thinks the company will open plenty of eyes.

“It’s like anything else where everyone’s so used to getting things done a certain way, which means to get clean water, you have to use chemicals,” he said. “We’re having to break down those barriers, which is difficult with some clients but others have been very receptive.”

- John Ceballos can be reached at john.ceballos@theledger.com or 863-802-7515.