UNESCO calls water air pollution one of many major challenges dealing with societies, with 2 million tonnes of sewage coming into the world’s water every day. Oxyle desires to assist clear up the disaster with a brand new wastewater remedy that removes micropollutants. The Zurich-based startup introduced at the moment $3 million in pre-seed funding that it’ll use to deliver its tech to market. The spherical was led by Wingman Ventures with participation from SOSV, Higher Ventures and one other.vc.
The brand new capital brings Oxyle’s whole raised thus far to $7.4 million because it was based in 2020. The startup’s clients embrace corporations within the pesticide, chemical, textile pigments, electronics and pharmaceutical sectors which can be regulated by strict discharge limits.
Oxyle’s wastewater remedy was developed 5 years in the past by co-founder and CEO Dr. Fajer Mushtaq throughout her doctoral analysis at ETH Zurich. Whereas incomes her masters, Dr. Mushtaq labored with artificial chemical substances to develop new nanomaterials for biomedical purposes. That resulted in wastewater containing poisonous chemical substances that wanted particular dealing with and disposal strategies. Since there wasn’t an efficient solution to take away the chemical substances, the wastewater needed to be incinerated.
“For me, this manner of dealing with water was not solely pricey, unsafe and really unsustainable, but it surely additionally fully removed one in all our most valuable assets,” Dr. Mushtaq stated. “The extra I researched this matter, the extra I learnt concerning the immense scale at which incineration was practiced by small and enormous worldwide corporations.”
She determined to focus her doctoral analysis on creating novel catalysts to take away micropollutants. Dr. Mushtaq then labored with co-founder and CTO Dr. Silvan Staufert to combine Oxyle’s water remedy answer right into a scalable expertise platform. Since then, Oxyle has accomplished paid pilots with industrial and municipal clients and elevated its workforce to 17 individuals.
Oxyle’s wastewater remedy removes micropollutants together with PFAS (chemical substances present in merchandise like cleansing options, water resistant materials and nonstick cookware), prescription drugs, hormones and pesticides. It entails a nanoporous catalyst (a fabric with excessive floor space that takes vitality) developed by Dr. Mushtaq. When the nanoporous catalyst is activated by water actions like effervescent or vibrations, it creates a chemical response. The chemical response generates oxidative radicals that break down natural pollution into carbon, fluorides and different innocent minerals.
Oxyle makes use of modular reactors to deploy its tech. For corporations that must adjust to discharge rules, Oxyle additionally presents an analytics platform for real-time monitoring of micropollutants related by its reactors.
The startup is continuous to carry out on-site paid pilots with clients to get suggestions on its expertise. It has labored on tasks with agrochemical corporations whose manufacturing processes end in excessive ranges of pesticides, herbicides and pesticides. That wastewater is often despatched for incineration, however Dr. Mushtaq stated they had been capable of take away greater than 95% of compounds through the use of Oxyle’s tech. The startup has additionally carried out environmental remediation tasks with industrial clients to deliver pollution, together with PFAS, in groundwater right down to beneath detection restrict.
Different wastewater options embrace activated carbon expertise (to soak up pollution) and membrane filtration (to filter out pollution) expertise, that are in broad use all over the world to deal with wastewater. However Dr. Mushtaq stated that pollution nonetheless stay on the used activated carbon or in concentrated water left over from the filtration course of. These applied sciences additionally end in excessive working prices, for the reason that activated carbon or membranes have to be changed.
Oxyle’s benefit is that it degrades micropollutants with out leading to secondary waste. Its nanoporous catalyst lasts for a very long time, and is totally recyclable, Dr. Mushtaq added. However Oxyle sees filtration applied sciences as companions as an alternative of rivals, for the reason that extremely concentrated wastewater they depart behind might be handled utilizing Oxyle’s strategies.
The startup is increasing its tech platform to cowl extra use instances, together with flow-through programs (or synthetic water channels), ultra-compact programs like these utilized in labs, massive scale use instances like municipal wastewater and low-cost options for creating economies. Oxyle can also be working with corporations and R&D institutes to enhance the velocity and value effectiveness of its pollutant analytics system.
In an announcement, Wingman Ventures founding accomplice Alex Stöckl stated, “Our freshwater assets are depleting at alarming charges and poisonous micropollutants in water result in extreme damages in our well being and atmosphere. New rules will demand corporations to behave. However moreover, we have to use sustainable expertise to guard our valuable water assets for us, and our future generations. We’re proud to assist Oxyle on their journey to deal with our world water drawback with the intention to give everybody entry to wash water.”
