An exotic technology called Photonic Ionization, Manipulation and Augmentation(PIMA) has been developed by Mr. Mark M. Benza. Benza found out that if fluids of specific chemical compositions, flowing through transparent conduits, were exposed to electromagnetic(photonic) fields of specific field strengths, wavelengths, pulse widths, amplitudes and frequencies their molecules could be substantially modified and separated out of solution.

This process, according to Benza, is therefore a serious candidate for large scale water treatment and desalination. Benza proposes changing the atomic and subatomic characteristics of the various materials dissolved in water so as to allow their precipitation or separation(by centrifuge effects) from other water molecules, thus leaving a product behind which is substantially free from dissolved salts and other chemicals.

Benza also claims that this process can be applied to a wide range of Medical, Industrial, Computer/Electronic and Health Care problems. For example, with the various laser technologies proposed for PIMA, Benza claims that a variety of altered beverage products can be produced, including types suitable for therapy, anti-oxidants, super-oxygenated, herbal, purgative, deacidifying and carbonated/non-carbonated applications.

The PIMA project is at a point where a major investor, Spectrum-Arabieh, has committed to financing the construction of a pilot, mobile(ship-board) desalination system within 8-12 months of this date. Benza's plan appears to be one of using licensing fees, royalties and other investment sources related to the desalination program to construct a full-scale laboratory wherein a variety of detailed tests could be conducted so as to produce empirical information suitable to the development of some of the other products listed above.

My personal view on this technology is as follows, based on conversations I have had with Benza as well as a review of the available literature on the subject..

Benza has developed a process which appears to duplicate to a great extent work conducted by Dr. Lee Lorenzen in the area of "water structuring". Benza has focused on the use of these processes for desalination whereas Lorenzen has concentrated on the use of these processes for medical and drinking water applications.

I find it curious that although Benza claims to have been working on this project since the late 1960's neither he or his marketing director have any working knowledge of Lorenzen's technology, or that of other researchers here in the USA and abroad who as noted elsewhere on this Website, have been actively producing working products using laser technologies for the better part of the last 10-15 years.

Benza is involved in a process which is designed to create "highly structured" water products.

His technology still appears to be in the developmental stages at this point and is a considerable distance from producing products which we believe would be of direct application to problems being addressed in general water treatment needs.

For example, domestic environmental legislation in several key states prevents the development of technologies such as Benza's for desalination applications. Ask any of those involved in desalination activities how easy it is to dispose of the residue created by desalination processes and you will see why such applications in the US have little short term viability.

The only practical, domestic application I see for the Benza technology at this point is that of agricultural waste water treatment. Significant business opportunities exist domestically for that application. Several months ago we requested documentation to verify the viability of Benza's technology, which he claims is applicable for this problem. We are still waiting. And so are our clients who have requested a solution to htis problem.

Developments in the area of sub-atomic particle manipulation have been completed by private US industry as well as individually financed activities both here and by major technology centers in the former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, much of the more interesting applications are classified but those which have reached the light of day are mind boggling at the least. As time permits, a major section of this website will be devoted to describing some of these applications, together with pictures of operational equipments and the success that they are enjoying in industrial and medical areas at this very moment.

Eight years ago, I had the unique opportunity to assist in the financing and development of a wide variety of products which utilized laser technologies and have observed results similar to what Benza currently claims for his water treatment/desalination process. World class scientists have worked with us here in California to produce these products and the extremely interesting results.

Drinking water products exhibiting some of the characteristics claimed by Benza are readily available on retail shelves here in California, but produced by other concerns who have solved the riddle of structuring water so as to make it far more powerful than the simplistic forms of water which we encounter in our everyday life.

As you are reading this paragraph, construction efforts are underway to produce operational laser and plasma technologies which can process millions of gallons of brackish and seawater a day. These technologies generate extraordinary "side products" consisting of hydrogen and steam which can power large hydroelectric plant turbines or produce combustible fuel products which exhibit little or no hydrocarbons.

Sound impossible? When the day comes that the US decides that it will not be held hostage to foreign oil, such technologies may well become mainstream energy and water treatment methologies.

The purpose of these examples are to provide you, the reader, with the fact that in the area of "functional water", of which this subtopic is an intrinsic member, that a wide variety of technologies have been developed to produce pure water, or alternatively, water which takes on characteristics of other organic or inorganic elements, all due to manipulation of the subatomic structures of water itself.

In conclusion on this subsection's topic, it would be extremely helpful to the scientific community as a whole if Benza's claims and developmental activities were presented in the open literature for peer review. At present, we can locate only a limited number of unrelated articles by Benza describing "far field" electromagnetic effects, seriously limiting the review, credibility and more importantly, the utility of such a technology.