TITUSVILLE, Fla. – The city of Titusville this week launched a six-month pilot deploying a mobile nanobubble generator to raise dissolved oxygen in a corner of the Indian River Lagoon.
The project called Green to Clean pairs private technology from Moleaer with independent science oversight from Florida Institute of Technology as the city and community funders test whether the approach can reduce muck, limit internal nutrient loading and improve water clarity.
“This pilot program will allow us to gather real data, measurable results, so that we can evaluate effectiveness and determine scalability,” Titusville Mayor Andrew Connors said at the kickoff event.
Moleaer representatives, Chris Stephan described how the trailer-mounted system works. “So what you see behind you is a nanobubble generator, what it’s doing is it’s pulling water in, it’s acting like a recirculation pump, and while it’s pumping the water, in between the time it’s coming, pulling it out and putting it back in, it’s injecting it with air, oxygen, and it is then creating nanoboubles and dissolving that oxygen in the water and doing it in a form that it doesn’t bubble back out.”
A nanobubble is extremely small. “A nanobubble is a tiny bubble the size of a bacteria,” Stephan said. “So about a billion of them in a milliliter of water.” Because nanobubbles are microscopic they do not rise and release gas at the surface the way larger bubbles do.
The system installed at the Titusville marina pumps roughly 1,000 gallons per minute and injects oxygen into the recirculated flow.
Community support and funding for the pilot came through a mix of public and private dollars and drew supporters across the region. “She stepped up and put her money where her mouth is and said, we are going to do it,” Mayor Connors said of one major donor.
Laurilee Thompson, co-owner of Dixie Crossroads and a project donor, described why she invested. “Here is a process that changes the molecular structure and leaves it all in place and makes it disappear. What could be better than that?” she said.
“I have huge hopes. I want to see the river fixed in my lifetime.”
Project backers said they expect measurable improvements in water clarity and reduced algae within months in the treated area, although full lagoon recovery would require multiple tools and larger-scale effort. “This is not a silver bullet. There is no single solution to decades of accumulated environmental stress, but this is a bold step forward,” Mayor Connors said.
Moleaer and the city said the pilot should last about six months and is intended to provide site-specific validation before larger investments.