PITTSBURGH, April 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Law Association (PIPLA) selected Dr. Shyam V. Dighe, founder and president of AquaSource Technologies Corporation (ATC), as this year's recipient of the Inventor of the Year award. PIPLA will honor Dr. Dighe at its annual awards dinner today in Pittsburgh.

The 34th Inventor of the Year award is awarded to a Pittsburgh-area inventor based upon PIPLA's review of the technical and economic significance of the invention and its specific contributions to society. "Dr. Dighe's contributions in helping make the extraction of natural gas from shale a more environmentally friendly endeavor tipped the scales in his favor for the Committee," according to Carl Ronald, chairperson of the PIPLA committee that selected Dr. Dighe.

Dr. Dighe founded ATC in 2011 and has been designing a treatment system utilizing his patent- protected plasma technology for use in cleaning and commercializing water that is not fit for human consumption. The end products of the treatment system are distilled water and salt with no residue that requires further disposal. This technology is particularly suited to the shale gas industry as a substitute for deep well injection of produced or 'end-of-life' wastewater. ATC is presently conducting demonstration testing of its treatment system on shale gas wastewater at one of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

"I have been fortunate to work in the field of high temperature plasma arc technology," says Dr. Dighe.  "It is technology capable of producing primordial forces of nature that created life. With plasma technology, you can create substances like diamonds that nature takes millions of years to create while, at the same time, you can also destroy substances like toxic and hazardous chemicals which take a severe toll on nature."

In 1999, Dr. Dighe founded the Westinghouse Plasma Corporation (WPC), which he formed after purchasing the technology from Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh. During his 19-year career with Westinghouse, Dr. Dighe was responsible for the management of operations at the Westinghouse Plasma Center located at Waltz Mill site, Madison, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Dighe holds a B. Tech. in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India; a Ph.D. and M.S. in chemical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University; and a MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. During 2016, ATC received four U.S. patents and four Canadian patents in the field of plasma technology as applied to the treatment of shale gas wastewater and sea water. Dr. Dighe holds a total of 23 patents. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamdighe/

Founded in 1916, PIPLA has more than 180 intellectual property lawyers in Western Pennsylvania.

Media Contact: 
NAME:  Mr. Jong Lee, VP Projects
PHONE: (724) 696-4290
EMAIL:  leej@aquasourcetechnologies.com

SOURCE AquaSource Technologies Corporation

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