Although humans and animals may seem to consume most of the world’s water, heavy industry consumes up to half of it. That’s why businesses are looking for new ways to recycle water, especially in the face of increasing drought.
Some of the world’s most important industries, including pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, textiles, mining and renewable energy, use huge amounts of water. Now, new companies are finding ways to recover and recycle water at the lowest possible cost.
The global water and wastewater treatment market is expected to reach half a trillion dollars by the end of this decade, according to Statista. Much of that market now involves harsh chemicals and is energy-intensive, but companies like Xylem, Veolia and Boston-based startup Gradiant are trying to cut costs and energy while eliminating chemicals.
“We take highly contaminated wastewater that contains solvents, that contains dissolved salt, that contains organic matter, and we eliminate the entire effluent,” said Prakash Govindan, co-founder and CTO of Gradient.
Anurag Bajpayee and Govindan founded Gradiant in 2013 as a spinout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Gradiant’s technology mimics how nature makes rain. Wastewater is heated, pumped into a humidifier, and mixed with the surrounding air. As the two interact, they heat up into steam, leaving behind the pollutants. Using a special technique, the steam is transferred to a column of cool, clean water. As the two mix, the air cools and fresh water falls on it, like rain falling from a cloud. According to Gradiant, this process cuts traditional costs in half.
“Other technologies can recover 50 to 60 percent of the water, but we can recover 99 percent,” Govindan said.
Gradiant is the first water purification startup. Its client list is impressive, working with companies including: coca colaBMW, Pfizer The company claims to save 1.7 billion gallons of water a day, or the amount consumed by 48 million people. It closed more than $500 million in new orders in the first half of this year, the company says, making its growth trajectory attractive to investors.
“Scaling these technologies is hard,” said Mark Danchak, co-founder of General Innovation Capital Partners, an investor in Gradiant. “It’s easy to find a product, but it’s much harder to find a complete end-to-end solution for customers, and that’s what Gradiant has done.”
Gradiant is also backed by Warburg Pincus, M&G Investments, Formation 8, Clearvision Ventures, and GRC. The company has raised $228 million to date.
CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.
