March 19, 2025 • 36 mins
As concerns about water quality and scarcity have gained attention, legal and regulatory developments have particularly targeted the removal of PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, which could prove a $300 billion market opportunity in the US. In this episode of ESG Currents, Bloomberg Intelligence senior analysts Gail Glazerman and Scott Levine speak with Oxyle’s CEO and co-founder Fajer Mushtaq about the drivers of PFAS removal, the challenges associated with addressing forever chemicals and Oxyle’s technology.
This episode was recorded on Feb. 26.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
ESG has become established as a key business theme as
companies and investors seek to navigate the climate crisis, energy transitions,
social mega trends, mounting regulatory attention and pressure from other stakeholders.
The rapidly evolving landscape has become inundated with acronyms, buzzwords,
and lingo. We aim to break these downs with industry experts.
Welcome TSG currents, your guide to navigating the evolving ESG space,
(00:33):
one topic at a time. Brought to you by Bloomberg Intelligence,
part of Bloomberg's research department, with five hundred analysts and
strategists working across all major world markets. Our coverage includes
over two thousand equities and credits, as well as outlooks
on more than ninety industries and one hundred market industries, currencies,
and commodities. I am Gail Glacierman, Senior ESG Integration Analyst,
(00:55):
and I'm joined today by Scott Levine, whose coverage includes
environmental services companies. We are your hosts for today's episode.
Water is an increasing challenge, with freshwater demand at risk
of outstripping supply and conditions expected to be exacerbated by
climate change. As water becomes scarcer, contamination and pollution is
becoming increasingly regulated, creating opportunities for companies that developed viable solutions.
(01:21):
Today we're talking about Forever Chemicals with the hair Mushtak,
CEO and co founder of Auxile. We'll discuss the challenges
and opportunities presented by the need to clean up pfas.
Thanks for joining us today, if Fire, thank you for
We're very focused on water. We've done a lot of
research and published on it, and I'm just wondering what
your overall scent is of market interest and focus on
(01:45):
water availability and quality, and how has that awareness evolved
in recent years and what do you see as the
biggest challenges.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, I mean that's a great question. So we want
to talk about, you know, the clean tech segment. We
were mostly talking about, you know, global warming and not
addressing something like what is scarcity and what that means? Right,
It's an interesting part of the puzzle today and with
growing population and also knowing the levels of contamination that
we are seeing in our fresh water resources today, it's
(02:16):
quite straggering data that's coming out in terms of what
we considered to be fresh water resources, which was like
one to two percent of the global water supply is
even lower than that because much of that today is
heavily contaminated. I can just speak about the Foreero chemical
contamination crisis more openly on this issue. Right, twenty thousand
(02:39):
plus sides all over Europe heavily contaminated by forever chemicals
and concentrations that are between ten to one thousand times
at least considered to be a carcinogenic right, same case
for us as well. We have seen four to five
thousand plus sides that were just announced last year to
be very heavily contaminated water, soil, or resource. So I'll
(03:01):
be talking about what's what's left in the water which
is considered safe water today? The new data is not
very optimistic and we look at that, which of course
puts a lot of pressure on regulators. It puts a
lot of pressure on the polluters, but also there's a
lot of public pressure today as well, demanding for better
regulatory push, demanding for more transparency, more sampling of water.
(03:24):
So it's like a new area of water which we
have seen before in my experience, where there's a momentum,
there's a drive now to look for innovation, look for change,
and that's really fascinating for someone like me who's trying
to do something I create impacts in this area, so
completely different momentum, something we don't really see in water before,
(03:45):
and the last five ten years have shaped surt new
trajectory caused obviously by the lack of clean water resources
and growing contamination.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Maybe taking a step back, you certainly referenced it, but
can you tell us a little bit that oxile and
what role it does play and in that momentum.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Of course, so Oxel. We are zero based water tech
STATUP based here in Switzerland, and our core mission in
in solving or at least helping to solve some of
the water crisis today is we are deploying our advanced
for every chemical removal solutions to our customers today where
we are up concentrating a huge chunk of this PIFAs
(04:28):
contamination from Motel using our proprietary up concentration technologies, which
helps us reduce the capex for the customers, the footprint
and the cost of the investment needed from customers to
deploy it, and then we end up destroying this really
heavily up concentrated PIVA so we don't filter we don't absorb.
We're actually destroying and mineralizing these toxic chemicals and actually
(04:51):
getting rid of them, like permanently getting rid of them.
And we're doing that in a really cost effective and
sustainable manner and energy values that are market defining. We
are at one kilo hours meter cube of feeded water
energy use, which is exactly what makes us scalable and deployable.
And a third element we give to our customers at
(05:13):
outside is also real time monitoring a p FAS in
the water. Today, all the monitoring analysts of PFAS is offline,
taking weeks to up to a month to get the data,
and we are breaking this cycle by giving a customers
real time data p FAS quality in the water every
few minutes, so bringing more transparency but also allowing for
(05:34):
optimizing of treatment as well.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And can you maybe back up to the technology a
little bit, so you obviously talked about the monitoring and
real time monitoring as a distinction, but maybe expand a
little bit on how your process and tools differ from
maybe other commonly used ways of removing pfas.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Of course, so the most commonly used technologies today in
PIFAs are really absorption in filtration the other markets doAnd
where you would absorb it or you'll filter pfas, right,
the problem being you create a secondary waste problem, you
don't actually get rid of the problem. And secondly, p
fas comes in different forms and shapes. You have long chain,
(06:13):
short chain, medium chain. Right. If you have smaller and
smaller p fas compounds, it's extremely hard to filter or
absorb them. Smaller they are, the more they escaped. So
convention technologies like filtration absorption are no longer able to
meet the new regulations that we are seeing coming into market.
On top of that, they create the secondary waste problem
(06:34):
where you don't actually get rid of the problem. Then
we also have destruction technologies that are coming into the
market today. Right, we are not the only company out
there today who is destroying PIFAs. There are many others
that are also doing that. For example, you have chemical
elegtochemical observation technologies. You also have something called hygrothermal treatments. Right,
(06:55):
all of these technologies are destroying p fas as well.
But they're doing that energy values that are at least
fifteen to one hundred times higher than hours, making the
opex challenge operating costs, a real burden for the customers
and also reducing the market penetration for these technologies. What
we do at aux Are which truly distinguishes us, is
we destroy pfas with the help of a catalytic oxidation
(07:18):
reduction process. So it's a novel catalyst that I was
invented twelve thirteen years ago during my doctrial thesis back
in the day, and this material is really amazing. We
use low energy inputs like mechanical energy like bubbles, vibration
in the water to activate this material. Once it's activated,
this catalyst converts this low energy mechanical sources of energy
(07:41):
into chemical energy to go through a series of oxidation
reduction processes. So basically, we have the bonds of the
organic pollutant. So if you have a long molecule, we'll
break every single bond of that So a carbon fluorine
bond will break it, carbon oxygen bod will break it.
So you keep breaking all the these bonds until all
the organic pollutant has been transformed into safety discharge in
(08:05):
organic minerals. And that's the beauty of this process. We're
not the only ones breaking these bonds. And destroying these chemicals.
But we're the only ones that are doing that energy
values that are unheard of, one kilo one hours meter cube.
It's a market defining value which allows us to scale
and also produce a solution that is actually affordable, because
(08:26):
today when a customer here is destruction technology, they run away.
They're like, we can't afford this. It is what we need,
but we can't afford it in terms of operating costs
because energy is so so high, and that is our
distinguishing factor, low energy activation, allowing us to be scalable.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
If I could just jump in with a question, you know,
you indicated that your focus is destruction, whereas there are
some other solutions out there that are more focused on
filtration and treatment. Is your solution? Does it need to
be paired with a filtration type of a technology like
(09:04):
granular activated carbon which can filter out a large degree
of the polutants, and you apply your destruction technology to
a smaller volume of water or waste water that contains
a higher level of contamination. Does it need to be
(09:24):
complementary to those types of solutions or can work on
its own.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That's a really great question, Scott, Thank you for thank
you for putting that together so short answers. It really depends.
So when we try to treat our industrial customer water,
it is already so heavily contaminated. We're talking about tens
to thousands of ppm of PIFAs in it. You do
not need any up concentration or filtration to concentrate them.
(09:48):
It's already in a very high concentration, meaning our technology
is very scalable at those high concentrations. But when we
talk about treating let's say groundwater or in a drinking water,
of course they're the concentration is much lower. We're talking
about nanograms perleted concentration, right, and they're having some kind
of an up concentration of pfas is definitely helpful for
(10:08):
reducing the costs, right. And what we do about this
challenge is we apply our PHOAM fractionation technology to that.
It's our own proprietary pre treatment technology that we have
invented and deployed on customer sites where we can concentrate
pfas from ten to about fifty x today. So if
you start with groundwater, the water goes through our PHAM
(10:30):
fractionation concentration technology in a matter of two minutes, we
can up concentrate all the PIFAs in a tiny amount
of foam on the top of the reactor and only
treat that the remaining water could be discharged. Ninety nine
percent of the water is discharged every two minutes. Safe
the discharge, all the pfas up concentrated by at least
ten x and then destroyed with our destruction. Get it,
(10:53):
But that does not mean that if someone one of
our customers have already paid for and deployed simated carbon
or filtration, we help them. They are left with the
secondary waste today. Right, So if you have, for example,
a deployed nonofiltration system, it works for you. There's a
pie for us in the water that's coming out, But
you do have the secondary waste now, which is heavily
(11:14):
concentrated reject water. We can those customers treat that as well,
But our technology doesn't necessarily need that to function. We
have our own up concentration technologies which we deployed today
quite successfully, reaching ten x plus up concentrations, which, by
the way, filtration today reaches about five to six seven
x best, so we already are considered way more than
(11:36):
what so the filteration technologies can concentrate. So we see
other companies that are doing filtration and absorption as true
partners here who we can help and support and take
care of their waste. But we don't necessarily need that
to function on our own today.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And is this solution applicable not just for waste water
and water treatment but also landfill leaching. I know that
there's concern about some of the pfas that's contained in
landfills leaching into the groundwater as you mentioned, and water
to see if your solution is applicable to those types
(12:11):
of waste streams as well.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Absolutely so, any kind of water matrix that you have,
we can treat the pfas from it. What we always
designed for a customer is a right pre treatments right.
So for example, if you have a lot of solids
in their sands in there, we will remove that first, right.
You will make sure that you remove them, you said,
amend them. You remove anything that's solid from the water
so you have clear water left and then we can
treat that. And our technology is very easily, very easy
(12:36):
to customize based on the concentration of pollutant, we add
the right amount of catalyst to the system to treat it.
So if you have drinking water, ground water, leach or
industrial water, all we need to adapt is amount of
catalyst that's added to the system.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Okay, but if there were pfas like let's say in soil,
would your solutions work on that, would you just be
able to actually put in water and then remove it
or because we've seen a lot of situations where farms
are becoming unusable because of contamination.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Great question, and it's one of the most active customer
segments we have today are soil washed projects are quite
active today in Europe and we work with a lot
of customers today who have a true problem not just
in the farmlands, but also in terms of construction and
building of places where they can't construct building They can't
build airports and ports and dams today because there's pe
(13:27):
fast in it. So what we do with our customers
today is we work with them. We have for soil
washed project for us, so we do washing a soil
This is not something we do. We work with the
partners who already have deployed these massive soil washing plants
that all technology has existed for a very long time
where you wash soil continuously tons and tons of it
every second and wash the soil off and it's clean then,
(13:50):
but then of course you're left with a lot of
water which has pe fast in it, and that's where
we come into play. So today we have deployed multiple
projects across Belgium Netherlands for example, where we are working
with our clients who are washing off the soil and
then needs immediate treatment of the pfus and it so
then there are a super concentrated waste water which is
full of PFUS and that's exactly where we come into place,
(14:14):
something that we have success. Success we deployed in Balgium,
Netherlands specifically because the amount of contamination in that region,
in the soil, in the farmlands, in the construction units,
so something we're very proud of and we can easily
scale this two big farmlands in the future as well.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And the byproduct, the mineral byproducts from your process, it's
completely harmless and does it and so there's no disposal
issues and does it actually have any sort of economic value?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Great question as well. So where we talk about environments
and remediation kind of projects where the concentration of PFUS
is super super low. We're doing about ppt. The concept
of vialarization of the by products is does not make
much economy impact. It could make more of an economy
impact where we talk about really concentrate waste water like
you know, which is like thousands of ppm. There you
(15:03):
could see some of the byproducts that reform, like calcium
fluoride for example, that could have an economic value. But
when we are looking at byproduct formation, our most important
critical importance today so or express on that is to
make sure that first of all it says to discharge right,
super super important to us, and for that we ensure
(15:25):
it is by doing something called a calyx test. It's
a test where if you have any any kind of
organic fluoride, any kind of fluoride in the water, which
is the carbon version of it, organic version of it,
the test will pick it up. It will give you
a negative response to a hormone essay for thyide response.
And this may also ensure that if you do destruction,
(15:45):
you don't create any secondary byproducts that are worse than
the starting point. And you also ensure that the water
isn't sate the discharge. So when we do these tests,
these biological essays. We compare our treated water quality to
drinking water like a bottled water you'll buy from a store, right,
and we'll compare it to that, and we are much
better our in our entire response tests, our treating water
(16:07):
than bottled water because we know today some of these
bottled water brands happy FASc in it ten to fifteen
thirty nineograms of p face in it, so we know
it's there. And our treated water, which is heavily contaminated
first after treatment, is safer than a bottled drinking water
today according to these tests that we do through independent
lamps that are running them, so we know that water
(16:27):
charging is safe. We know that the byproducts that we're
forming are minerals like cash and fluoride, self faced phostphates,
water molecules. Right. In terms of is an economic value today,
quite limited unfortunately, because yeah, that's not the key focus
for us. But if you go to industrial water, this
could become more of an interesting topic. But for grand
(16:48):
water drinking water, it is such low concentrations it doesn't
make so much sense economically to valorize that and like
get value from that.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Okay, that's really interesting and maybe taking a step back,
can you walk through what your outlook is for PFAZ
cleanup efforts over the next couple of years, And I
assume that relies quite heavily on the regulatory background, So
maybe if you could quite candidly discot andmize initial interest
in pfas came with the introduction of the US drinking
(17:20):
water rules that went in place last year, and I'm
just wondering kind of what your regulatory outlook is, what
key things have developed, and what key developments and changes
on the regulatory stance you might be looking for in
the next year or two.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Of course, I mean the example you brought up with
the US as well, right, the EPA issuing the first
ever national legally Possible Drinking Water Standards PFAS last year
was quite ornamental. We were hoping to see something like
that after the papast my project was launched, so that
was really great to see that for six p pass compounds,
(17:54):
which were most frequently found, we now had four to
ten pp to discharge limits need to be enforced by
twenty and twenty nine. So that was really interesting and
very inspiring for us to see and almost like an
example for Europe to watch and learn from. Of course,
now we also have to be quite mindful to see
how that shapes the current presidency. Of course in the US,
(18:17):
could weakens up those enforcements, could also slow down some
of the regulatory pressures or even roll back some of
the existing regulations. Right, So, I think it depends how
things are shaping. So it's quite up in the air.
But you also have seen there are so many, you know,
lawsuits that are taking place today, there's so much public pressure,
(18:40):
there's so many changes and movements, not just in the US,
but also on the state regulatory aspects as well, where
you know states like Massachusetts and Maine and California coming
out with their own local regulations. In that in the
US there is a momentum there which is not just
tied to a federal level today in US. Similarly, on
the European side of things, just a couple of weeks ago,
(19:03):
actually there was only two weeks ago now here in
France we had a great example of a shift on
the regulatory aspect of p fast as well, where France
pasts were the most toughest p fas las yet, banning
p fas in cosmetics, clothing and textiles, and also holding
the polluters financially accountable. So that was a seismic shift
(19:23):
to what we've seen before in Europe where under this
new law, now companies will be charged, for example, one
hundred euros for every one hundred grounds of pfast that
is discharged into water, and the funds from this are
directly going to fund remediation and cleanup work. So this
could be another example that BA seeing on the European
side where a country is taking a step forward in
(19:44):
this direction and others adjoining suit. Of course, this does
not go as far as we would like it to go.
There's a lot of room for that one hundred euros
one hundred grams of PIFAs. That sounds very cheap to me, unfortunately,
but that is a step forward in the direction of
a country in Europe, big country in Europe setting up
a regulatory framework around punishing polluters and holding them accountable
(20:05):
and also banning the user of PIFAs in areas where
they do not need it anymore. So we are seeing
a lot of momentum from different European countries also on
EU levels from the Water Framework directive perspective, and not
just in banning them but also reducing their discharge into
water from the industrial point source use cases for example.
(20:26):
So this is a momentum, there's a shift, and I
think we will see more and more of that. And
I can pick these up already in the conversations with
the customers today, many of them who are polluters right
where they feel this pressure where they know that if
today they have let's say one hundred nanograms discharge limit,
they know it the next year it's going to be
harved and they have to pay for that. So we
(20:48):
feel the pressure not just what's happening on the regulatory
firm framework, but from the polluters themselves where they know
they need to adapt and the same old, same old
caun't work. So of course that's that's great to see.
And yeah, I guess we will have to just wait
and see what happens in the US. But on the
European side, definitely a lot of push from individual countries today.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
That brings up an interesting question. You know, if there
are differences in the maximum contamination limits across countries or
even states. You know, I know the EPA regulation clean
that up or should clean that issue up in the
States to some extent, But if there are differences in
(21:29):
the limits or differences in the regulations across regions. Is
your solution universally applicable? You have to customize in order
to comply with different regulations in different contamination limits across
regions or countries. With regard to your solution.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Great question. The simple answer is we customize that based
on the regulations that are set by changing, for example,
the treatment time. Right, So our customization goes as far
as do we need to do a fifteen minute treatment
or twenty five minute treatment to meet for example, one
hundred people to discharge the limit or a five ppt.
So this is how we vary this, right. The technology
(22:11):
stays the same, the energy inputs, the process inputs, they
all say the same. What we vary on is the
treatment time needed to reach lower higher regulatory limits. It
is a universal treatment, right, so we target all p
faus at the same time. So if one country, for example,
one state is limiting five compounds only and the other
(22:31):
one is limiting one hundred, our treatment just destroys all
the pfas at the same time. It's very non selective.
It's quite universal, right. But of course, if a customer
wants to reach one hundred ppt or fifty ppt. It's
a matter of the optimizing for all time in that case,
so the part does not change, the process changes, which
is easily applicable and sort of customized and optimized in
(22:54):
real time based on the customers need. And this is
also a little bit of future proofing here as well,
because we know that the regulations are changing. And this
is also pitched to a customer today. If you buy
some of the conventional technologies for them to adapt to
future regulations is going to cost you a lot in
terms of capics and stiling from scratch. If you're switched
to our technology to adapt to future regulations, you're just
(23:16):
paying for longer treatment times because the process is no longer,
so you don't have to make a fresh, brand new
investment that perspective, because it's so non selective and so universal.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
And taking a step back as well with regard to
the regulatory framework that you've seen emerge in the US
predominantly under the Biden administration, obviously, you know, are you
happy with what you've seen there? Do you think it
should be effective in addressing this issue, or are there
(23:46):
changes you think would be helpful in addressing the issue
more and more effectively. At a high level.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Of course, someone who's providing a treatment solution, I would
always say more regulations are always better. I didn't can't
think of a different answer, Right, Was it far enough?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Not? Really?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It limited six p FIS compounds. We have fifteen thousand
plus PFIs compounds, right, so you think about what set
scope and where we are. It's like a touching, like
you know, using your total tip touch the water. That's
how it felt. But it was still a really big
step because that was a big country like us coming
out and putting together our framework of how this looks
(24:28):
today and how this could shape and evolve in the future.
So it's a great first step of limiting six of
the most commonly found p FOS compounds and also putting
limits that a single digit discharge limits. That was really interesting,
so we're not doing one hundred ppt anymore. We were
targeting single p FOS compounds and putting them as close
as possible to the detection limit of the instruments today
(24:50):
even detect them in the water. So that was really interesting.
But I think there's a lot of room here to
include more and more p FUS compounds. We can easily
find hundreds of them every day in a drinking wattle
and a ground water. Six doesn't cut it. Is it
a good step forwards to start something? Absolutely, but it's
a long way to go, and of course the hope
(25:11):
was discontinuous. I right now, as I said before, this
just puts the whole thing a little bit into a
different perspective. Now if we are scaling that regulation to
more compounds or obviously just downscaling the whole thing now.
So that's a little bit of an interesting place that
I think the EPA and the new presidency finds itself.
But there's a lot of work to do. Fifteen thousand
(25:33):
p fast compounds is a toll order, I'm aware of it.
But six six is, let's say, a very interesting start.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And France's recent actions, which I believe we're primarily focusing
on the production side, like limiting products and imports of
products that are made with pfas and I know we've
seen some of that in individual US states as well.
Do you think that's effective? Do you think how long
would that take, I guess to put you out of
(26:01):
business if we kind of stop the production of it.
I'm going to guess the answer is not something you're
losing sleepover. But do you think they're going far enough
there and that will make it dent? And when we
might say that dent and.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Honest answer is no, it doesn't give us room to
worry about. But two different reasons, right, Because one thing is,
even if you were to ban pf US tomorrow, the
ways all these laws are structured, it just does not
completely take it out of the cycle today. Right. The
use cases where they're completely irreplaceable and no law will
ban them, like from semicon that's the use for example
(26:38):
medical devices, for example, aerospace applications. There is no other
replacement pief us today and you can't replace them, and
we simply can't go on living our lives without a
semicond devices. Right, So I know that use cases where
there is not replacement, it's too risky to even think
about replacing them. From cosmetics, textiles, yes, of course they're
better alternatives. Do we need can use BAX to use
(27:02):
you know, rang jackets instead of using PFIs And as
we can. So the use cases where we should remove
them from and they are removing it. But then there
are so many other critical large skal use cases where
we can't replace them, right, And that's one part of
the puzzle, right. The second part is even if everything
was to be magically replaced in the next decade or two,
which honestly, as a founder of a clean teguatech SATA,
(27:23):
would make me really happy to see. We need to
stop discharging these chemicals into a water. Absolutely. The bill
that we are seeing on the market for remediation of
our water that's already contaminated is staggering. Lemon. The French
newspaper came out with the article or a really great
(27:43):
investigative peace on this in January where they put the
bill on one hundred billion per year is the cost
of cleanup a befas of water in Europe one hundred
billion a year for the next twenty years in counting.
So this is the kind of numbers we are looking
at Pele to completely stop all cleanup, all production tomorrow
and just focus on remediation, focus on cleanup of contaminated
(28:07):
ground water, drinking water, soil. So yes, I think the
only reason to lose sleep is radious down and how
fast you can help, and not if the market is
drinking because unfortunately or fortunately for whichever you look at it,
it's a big pottom to solve and a big impact
to make remediation wise, are active contamination stopping wise?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
And you mentioned one hundred billion a year in Europe.
I guess I can go about this a couple of
different ways. But if I remember correctly, you talked about
ten thousand sites and you are a prowld of just
something like forty plus thousand sites in the US, would
it the map be that simple or do you have
an estimate about how much them that similar calculation might
(28:49):
be for the US market?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean, that's a great question. So in Europe, it's
it's not just ten thousand sites. We know of twenty
thousand sites plus presumed another ten to twenty thousand that
based on how water flows, they should also be PIFAs downstream. Right,
So it's not as simple math as saying we know
of twenty thousand sides. So it's it's one hundred billion
we know of twenty thousand today, and then based on
(29:13):
just the normal hydraulics of water, we know there's at
least twice more of these sides that we know of today, right,
And the numbers that they put together for this hundred
billion a year was really coming from the non known sides.
The number is obviously much much bigger than that. That's
the best what they said was the tip of the iceberg.
It's this one hundred billion per year that we can
say it's a huge histronical number in reality in Europe,
(29:37):
and the same is true for US, right because it
depends also about the concentration of this contamination, And from
my understanding of the US data that I've seen, if
you're talking about one hundred ppt hundred nartograms per later
in Europe contamination of groundwater, we're talking about at least
ten times higher in US in many states. So it's
even higher contamination because it has been going on for
(29:58):
much longer than in Europe, with three m the points
being there much longer. So I don't want to sat
comparing apples oranges, but I would say it's at least
one hundred billion for your even US, if not more, and.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
With opportunities potentially of that size with the regulatory backing
at least from the state level, if not the federal level,
likely to continue, do you get a senset of dusters
are actively looking for opportunities like an auxile to put
their money to work in and funding these types of solutions.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Absolutely. You know, water was never a very investable space
for VC's water tag receives less than one percent and
I'm not kidding here, less than one percent of all
the clean tech funding, not overall funding clean tech funding,
less than one percent goes to water. And that's changing.
We're seeing so many, so much interest from ecs. Where
(30:56):
you have newspaper articles coming out water is at new
climating bed freak. So I thought that's a newspaper article. Sorry, right,
but it's something we have seen implemented in our case.
We're raised two rounds today. The first round we raised
wasn't twenty twenty two, twenty two, Yes, where the round
came to us. See when not fundraising, we got a
great term sheet, we closed around and just last year
(31:18):
in December, we close our seed round, a sixteen million
dollar seed round, again without fundraising. We just got the
mbsheet and we closed around in a month literally. So
what I am seeing personally as a founder who has
raised two rounds, who's raised twenty six million in the
last four years, is a great appetite for water. Water
is investable because there's money to be made, something I
(31:40):
would not have predicted when I founded Augxile because I
was told no one invests in water. It looks very
different now. Four years plus after founding Auxel, we raised
twenty six million today without actually fundraising, And that's the
joke here.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
One additional question. I know we spent a lot of
time here today talking about PIFAs, but are there any
other markets that you're targeting above and beyond p FAZ specifically.
I know there's a focus on lead in drinking water
and some other types of contaminants, but is the focus
wholly on on pfas or the other types of water
(32:17):
contaminants we should have an eye on as far as
your company is concerned.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So our tech is really universal, so it will not
just destroy p fas. PFIs are just the hardest things
to destroy because the bond of carbon and floury is
so so strong. It's very hard to destroy that. So
if we can destroy that economically, we can destroy the
simple carbon hydrogen bonds. Carbon nitrogen bonds the easier one
to destroy, absolutely right, So, which means if you have
(32:41):
a customer who is a big pesticide contamination problem. They
can come and work with us, We work with them.
We have actually quite a few case studies published on
a website, or how we work with companies who have
pharmaceuticals in the water, how we work with customers who
have pesticides in the water. It's not a key focus
today just because the market is so heavily focused on
PIFAs that eighty plus percent the lead that we get
(33:03):
or inbounds are all p fast related. So we are
focusing on that because the market is asking us to
focus on that, right, But in terms of technology, we
can help last pharmaceutical customers ensure they're not discharging pharmaceuticals
like antibiotics into the water, and then that leads to
obviously anti anti anti microbial resistance problem in the water
in the future. So there are many other contaminants like that,
(33:26):
like PIFAs are not so toxic but are causing much
larger issues as well, and we can also treat that.
It's a matter of having the right customer with the
right pain problem and our billingness to pay and solve that.
In p file, it's very very clear the need the
problem and lack of a solution for other use cases. Again,
it's a very nuanced problem where pharmaceutical gover needs special
(33:48):
side producers. You know, chemical producers also have a problem
and they can also work with us, and we can
work with them. It's actually much easier for us to
help them than pi fas.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Thank you. It's just economically competitive, or there are other
solutions that start to be more viable.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I'm sure pharmaceuticals and pesticide actior carbon filtration are also
really good viable solutions as they are as they used
to be less safe for p FIST as well until
the regulation has changed. About what the customer has come
to us when they're doing pestive and manufacturing or power
cuticles is they're always left behind with the secondary waste problem.
If you absorve pharmaceuticals, for example, actipurt carbon, you're left
(34:28):
with this toxic, contaminated axpirit cobon full of pharmaceuticals. What
do you do with that? Mostly you burn them, You
send them for incineration, which is extremely costly and really
something that leads to a lot of health issues for
the stuff. And that's something they also want to change
in line with their sustainability metrics where they're trying to
reduce their pseudo emissions, and you can't reduce zerodo emissions
(34:49):
if you're burning your waist. So that's the problem that
they are facing. So even if it's a cheaper solution
exists today for a quick fix, it is not a
sustainable fix for them for long term, and that that
is why they would work with us. And the same time,
we also have to make sure we're cost competitive while
you offer them the USPS, and it is possible for
us to scale the technology for those use cases and
(35:10):
also be cost competitive there because we are opics, our
energy values is so so low, so there's a market
there as well for us to explore. It's just a
matter of focusing somewhere where only we can make the
biggest difference today, which is p FAUS. There's a questions
as there is no other solution today as can remove
these chemicals, all of these pifa us at these energy values,
(35:30):
there is nothing out there on the market like oxid today.
For other use cases there are solutions and then you
have to be cost competitive. So for us, it's a
no brainer, right, you go with it. There's a niche
that no one else console.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
That is really interesting and fairly encouraging, just given how
entrenched this problem is. Thank you so much for your
time today. I know I learned a lot, and thank
you for listening. You can find more information on wastewater
management by going to BIESGCO on the Bloomberg terminal. If
you have an ESG quandary or burning question you'd like
(36:03):
to ask BIS expert analysts, please send us an email
at ESG Currens at Bloomberg dot net. Thanks again for
joining today
ESG has become established as a key business theme as
companies and investors seek to navigate the climate crisis, energy transitions,
social mega trends, mounting regulatory attention and pressure from other stakeholders.
The rapidly evolving landscape has become inundated with acronyms, buzzwords,
and lingo. We aim to break these downs with industry experts.
Welcome TSG currents, your guide to navigating the evolving ESG space,
(00:33):
one topic at a time. Brought to you by Bloomberg Intelligence,
part of Bloomberg's research department, with five hundred analysts and
strategists working across all major world markets. Our coverage includes
over two thousand equities and credits, as well as outlooks
on more than ninety industries and one hundred market industries, currencies,
and commodities. I am Gail Glacierman, Senior ESG Integration Analyst,
(00:55):
and I'm joined today by Scott Levine, whose coverage includes
environmental services companies. We are your hosts for today's episode.
Water is an increasing challenge, with freshwater demand at risk
of outstripping supply and conditions expected to be exacerbated by
climate change. As water becomes scarcer, contamination and pollution is
becoming increasingly regulated, creating opportunities for companies that developed viable solutions.
(01:21):
Today we're talking about Forever Chemicals with the hair Mushtak,
CEO and co founder of Auxile. We'll discuss the challenges
and opportunities presented by the need to clean up pfas.
Thanks for joining us today, if Fire, thank you for
We're very focused on water. We've done a lot of
research and published on it, and I'm just wondering what
your overall scent is of market interest and focus on
(01:45):
water availability and quality, and how has that awareness evolved
in recent years and what do you see as the
biggest challenges.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, I mean that's a great question. So we want
to talk about, you know, the clean tech segment. We
were mostly talking about, you know, global warming and not
addressing something like what is scarcity and what that means? Right,
It's an interesting part of the puzzle today and with
growing population and also knowing the levels of contamination that
we are seeing in our fresh water resources today, it's
(02:16):
quite straggering data that's coming out in terms of what
we considered to be fresh water resources, which was like
one to two percent of the global water supply is
even lower than that because much of that today is
heavily contaminated. I can just speak about the Foreero chemical
contamination crisis more openly on this issue. Right, twenty thousand
(02:39):
plus sides all over Europe heavily contaminated by forever chemicals
and concentrations that are between ten to one thousand times
at least considered to be a carcinogenic right, same case
for us as well. We have seen four to five
thousand plus sides that were just announced last year to
be very heavily contaminated water, soil, or resource. So I'll
(03:01):
be talking about what's what's left in the water which
is considered safe water today? The new data is not
very optimistic and we look at that, which of course
puts a lot of pressure on regulators. It puts a
lot of pressure on the polluters, but also there's a
lot of public pressure today as well, demanding for better
regulatory push, demanding for more transparency, more sampling of water.
(03:24):
So it's like a new area of water which we
have seen before in my experience, where there's a momentum,
there's a drive now to look for innovation, look for change,
and that's really fascinating for someone like me who's trying
to do something I create impacts in this area, so
completely different momentum, something we don't really see in water before,
(03:45):
and the last five ten years have shaped surt new
trajectory caused obviously by the lack of clean water resources
and growing contamination.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Maybe taking a step back, you certainly referenced it, but
can you tell us a little bit that oxile and
what role it does play and in that momentum.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Of course, so Oxel. We are zero based water tech
STATUP based here in Switzerland, and our core mission in
in solving or at least helping to solve some of
the water crisis today is we are deploying our advanced
for every chemical removal solutions to our customers today where
we are up concentrating a huge chunk of this PIFAs
(04:28):
contamination from Motel using our proprietary up concentration technologies, which
helps us reduce the capex for the customers, the footprint
and the cost of the investment needed from customers to
deploy it, and then we end up destroying this really
heavily up concentrated PIVA so we don't filter we don't absorb.
We're actually destroying and mineralizing these toxic chemicals and actually
(04:51):
getting rid of them, like permanently getting rid of them.
And we're doing that in a really cost effective and
sustainable manner and energy values that are market defining. We
are at one kilo hours meter cube of feeded water
energy use, which is exactly what makes us scalable and deployable.
And a third element we give to our customers at
(05:13):
outside is also real time monitoring a p FAS in
the water. Today, all the monitoring analysts of PFAS is offline,
taking weeks to up to a month to get the data,
and we are breaking this cycle by giving a customers
real time data p FAS quality in the water every
few minutes, so bringing more transparency but also allowing for
(05:34):
optimizing of treatment as well.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And can you maybe back up to the technology a
little bit, so you obviously talked about the monitoring and
real time monitoring as a distinction, but maybe expand a
little bit on how your process and tools differ from
maybe other commonly used ways of removing pfas.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Of course, so the most commonly used technologies today in
PIFAs are really absorption in filtration the other markets doAnd
where you would absorb it or you'll filter pfas, right,
the problem being you create a secondary waste problem, you
don't actually get rid of the problem. And secondly, p
fas comes in different forms and shapes. You have long chain,
(06:13):
short chain, medium chain. Right. If you have smaller and
smaller p fas compounds, it's extremely hard to filter or
absorb them. Smaller they are, the more they escaped. So
convention technologies like filtration absorption are no longer able to
meet the new regulations that we are seeing coming into market.
On top of that, they create the secondary waste problem
(06:34):
where you don't actually get rid of the problem. Then
we also have destruction technologies that are coming into the
market today. Right, we are not the only company out
there today who is destroying PIFAs. There are many others
that are also doing that. For example, you have chemical
elegtochemical observation technologies. You also have something called hygrothermal treatments. Right,
(06:55):
all of these technologies are destroying p fas as well.
But they're doing that energy values that are at least
fifteen to one hundred times higher than hours, making the
opex challenge operating costs, a real burden for the customers
and also reducing the market penetration for these technologies. What
we do at aux Are which truly distinguishes us, is
we destroy pfas with the help of a catalytic oxidation
(07:18):
reduction process. So it's a novel catalyst that I was
invented twelve thirteen years ago during my doctrial thesis back
in the day, and this material is really amazing. We
use low energy inputs like mechanical energy like bubbles, vibration
in the water to activate this material. Once it's activated,
this catalyst converts this low energy mechanical sources of energy
(07:41):
into chemical energy to go through a series of oxidation
reduction processes. So basically, we have the bonds of the
organic pollutant. So if you have a long molecule, we'll
break every single bond of that So a carbon fluorine
bond will break it, carbon oxygen bod will break it.
So you keep breaking all the these bonds until all
the organic pollutant has been transformed into safety discharge in
(08:05):
organic minerals. And that's the beauty of this process. We're
not the only ones breaking these bonds. And destroying these chemicals.
But we're the only ones that are doing that energy
values that are unheard of, one kilo one hours meter cube.
It's a market defining value which allows us to scale
and also produce a solution that is actually affordable, because
(08:26):
today when a customer here is destruction technology, they run away.
They're like, we can't afford this. It is what we need,
but we can't afford it in terms of operating costs
because energy is so so high, and that is our
distinguishing factor, low energy activation, allowing us to be scalable.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
If I could just jump in with a question, you know,
you indicated that your focus is destruction, whereas there are
some other solutions out there that are more focused on
filtration and treatment. Is your solution? Does it need to
be paired with a filtration type of a technology like
(09:04):
granular activated carbon which can filter out a large degree
of the polutants, and you apply your destruction technology to
a smaller volume of water or waste water that contains
a higher level of contamination. Does it need to be
(09:24):
complementary to those types of solutions or can work on
its own.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That's a really great question, Scott, Thank you for thank
you for putting that together so short answers. It really depends.
So when we try to treat our industrial customer water,
it is already so heavily contaminated. We're talking about tens
to thousands of ppm of PIFAs in it. You do
not need any up concentration or filtration to concentrate them.
(09:48):
It's already in a very high concentration, meaning our technology
is very scalable at those high concentrations. But when we
talk about treating let's say groundwater or in a drinking water,
of course they're the concentration is much lower. We're talking
about nanograms perleted concentration, right, and they're having some kind
of an up concentration of pfas is definitely helpful for
(10:08):
reducing the costs, right. And what we do about this
challenge is we apply our PHOAM fractionation technology to that.
It's our own proprietary pre treatment technology that we have
invented and deployed on customer sites where we can concentrate
pfas from ten to about fifty x today. So if
you start with groundwater, the water goes through our PHAM
(10:30):
fractionation concentration technology in a matter of two minutes, we
can up concentrate all the PIFAs in a tiny amount
of foam on the top of the reactor and only
treat that the remaining water could be discharged. Ninety nine
percent of the water is discharged every two minutes. Safe
the discharge, all the pfas up concentrated by at least
ten x and then destroyed with our destruction. Get it,
(10:53):
But that does not mean that if someone one of
our customers have already paid for and deployed simated carbon
or filtration, we help them. They are left with the
secondary waste today. Right, So if you have, for example,
a deployed nonofiltration system, it works for you. There's a
pie for us in the water that's coming out, But
you do have the secondary waste now, which is heavily
(11:14):
concentrated reject water. We can those customers treat that as well,
But our technology doesn't necessarily need that to function. We
have our own up concentration technologies which we deployed today
quite successfully, reaching ten x plus up concentrations, which, by
the way, filtration today reaches about five to six seven
x best, so we already are considered way more than
(11:36):
what so the filteration technologies can concentrate. So we see
other companies that are doing filtration and absorption as true
partners here who we can help and support and take
care of their waste. But we don't necessarily need that
to function on our own today.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And is this solution applicable not just for waste water
and water treatment but also landfill leaching. I know that
there's concern about some of the pfas that's contained in
landfills leaching into the groundwater as you mentioned, and water
to see if your solution is applicable to those types
(12:11):
of waste streams as well.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Absolutely so, any kind of water matrix that you have,
we can treat the pfas from it. What we always
designed for a customer is a right pre treatments right.
So for example, if you have a lot of solids
in their sands in there, we will remove that first, right.
You will make sure that you remove them, you said,
amend them. You remove anything that's solid from the water
so you have clear water left and then we can
treat that. And our technology is very easily, very easy
(12:36):
to customize based on the concentration of pollutant, we add
the right amount of catalyst to the system to treat it.
So if you have drinking water, ground water, leach or
industrial water, all we need to adapt is amount of
catalyst that's added to the system.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Okay, but if there were pfas like let's say in soil,
would your solutions work on that, would you just be
able to actually put in water and then remove it
or because we've seen a lot of situations where farms
are becoming unusable because of contamination.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Great question, and it's one of the most active customer
segments we have today are soil washed projects are quite
active today in Europe and we work with a lot
of customers today who have a true problem not just
in the farmlands, but also in terms of construction and
building of places where they can't construct building They can't
build airports and ports and dams today because there's pe
(13:27):
fast in it. So what we do with our customers
today is we work with them. We have for soil
washed project for us, so we do washing a soil
This is not something we do. We work with the
partners who already have deployed these massive soil washing plants
that all technology has existed for a very long time
where you wash soil continuously tons and tons of it
every second and wash the soil off and it's clean then,
(13:50):
but then of course you're left with a lot of
water which has pe fast in it, and that's where
we come into play. So today we have deployed multiple
projects across Belgium Netherlands for example, where we are working
with our clients who are washing off the soil and
then needs immediate treatment of the pfus and it so
then there are a super concentrated waste water which is
full of PFUS and that's exactly where we come into place,
(14:14):
something that we have success. Success we deployed in Balgium,
Netherlands specifically because the amount of contamination in that region,
in the soil, in the farmlands, in the construction units,
so something we're very proud of and we can easily
scale this two big farmlands in the future as well.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And the byproduct, the mineral byproducts from your process, it's
completely harmless and does it and so there's no disposal
issues and does it actually have any sort of economic value?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Great question as well. So where we talk about environments
and remediation kind of projects where the concentration of PFUS
is super super low. We're doing about ppt. The concept
of vialarization of the by products is does not make
much economy impact. It could make more of an economy
impact where we talk about really concentrate waste water like
you know, which is like thousands of ppm. There you
(15:03):
could see some of the byproducts that reform, like calcium
fluoride for example, that could have an economic value. But
when we are looking at byproduct formation, our most important
critical importance today so or express on that is to
make sure that first of all it says to discharge right,
super super important to us, and for that we ensure
(15:25):
it is by doing something called a calyx test. It's
a test where if you have any any kind of
organic fluoride, any kind of fluoride in the water, which
is the carbon version of it, organic version of it,
the test will pick it up. It will give you
a negative response to a hormone essay for thyide response.
And this may also ensure that if you do destruction,
(15:45):
you don't create any secondary byproducts that are worse than
the starting point. And you also ensure that the water
isn't sate the discharge. So when we do these tests,
these biological essays. We compare our treated water quality to
drinking water like a bottled water you'll buy from a store, right,
and we'll compare it to that, and we are much
better our in our entire response tests, our treating water
(16:07):
than bottled water because we know today some of these
bottled water brands happy FASc in it ten to fifteen
thirty nineograms of p face in it, so we know
it's there. And our treated water, which is heavily contaminated
first after treatment, is safer than a bottled drinking water
today according to these tests that we do through independent
lamps that are running them, so we know that water
(16:27):
charging is safe. We know that the byproducts that we're
forming are minerals like cash and fluoride, self faced phostphates,
water molecules. Right. In terms of is an economic value today,
quite limited unfortunately, because yeah, that's not the key focus
for us. But if you go to industrial water, this
could become more of an interesting topic. But for grand
(16:48):
water drinking water, it is such low concentrations it doesn't
make so much sense economically to valorize that and like
get value from that.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Okay, that's really interesting and maybe taking a step back,
can you walk through what your outlook is for PFAZ
cleanup efforts over the next couple of years, And I
assume that relies quite heavily on the regulatory background, So
maybe if you could quite candidly discot andmize initial interest
in pfas came with the introduction of the US drinking
(17:20):
water rules that went in place last year, and I'm
just wondering kind of what your regulatory outlook is, what
key things have developed, and what key developments and changes
on the regulatory stance you might be looking for in
the next year or two.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Of course, I mean the example you brought up with
the US as well, right, the EPA issuing the first
ever national legally Possible Drinking Water Standards PFAS last year
was quite ornamental. We were hoping to see something like
that after the papast my project was launched, so that
was really great to see that for six p pass compounds,
(17:54):
which were most frequently found, we now had four to
ten pp to discharge limits need to be enforced by
twenty and twenty nine. So that was really interesting and
very inspiring for us to see and almost like an
example for Europe to watch and learn from. Of course,
now we also have to be quite mindful to see
how that shapes the current presidency. Of course in the US,
(18:17):
could weakens up those enforcements, could also slow down some
of the regulatory pressures or even roll back some of
the existing regulations. Right, So, I think it depends how
things are shaping. So it's quite up in the air.
But you also have seen there are so many, you know,
lawsuits that are taking place today, there's so much public pressure,
(18:40):
there's so many changes and movements, not just in the US,
but also on the state regulatory aspects as well, where
you know states like Massachusetts and Maine and California coming
out with their own local regulations. In that in the
US there is a momentum there which is not just
tied to a federal level today in US. Similarly, on
the European side of things, just a couple of weeks ago,
(19:03):
actually there was only two weeks ago now here in
France we had a great example of a shift on
the regulatory aspect of p fast as well, where France
pasts were the most toughest p fas las yet, banning
p fas in cosmetics, clothing and textiles, and also holding
the polluters financially accountable. So that was a seismic shift
(19:23):
to what we've seen before in Europe where under this
new law, now companies will be charged, for example, one
hundred euros for every one hundred grounds of pfast that
is discharged into water, and the funds from this are
directly going to fund remediation and cleanup work. So this
could be another example that BA seeing on the European
side where a country is taking a step forward in
(19:44):
this direction and others adjoining suit. Of course, this does
not go as far as we would like it to go.
There's a lot of room for that one hundred euros
one hundred grams of PIFAs. That sounds very cheap to me, unfortunately,
but that is a step forward in the direction of
a country in Europe, big country in Europe setting up
a regulatory framework around punishing polluters and holding them accountable
(20:05):
and also banning the user of PIFAs in areas where
they do not need it anymore. So we are seeing
a lot of momentum from different European countries also on
EU levels from the Water Framework directive perspective, and not
just in banning them but also reducing their discharge into
water from the industrial point source use cases for example.
(20:26):
So this is a momentum, there's a shift, and I
think we will see more and more of that. And
I can pick these up already in the conversations with
the customers today, many of them who are polluters right
where they feel this pressure where they know that if
today they have let's say one hundred nanograms discharge limit,
they know it the next year it's going to be
harved and they have to pay for that. So we
(20:48):
feel the pressure not just what's happening on the regulatory
firm framework, but from the polluters themselves where they know
they need to adapt and the same old, same old
caun't work. So of course that's that's great to see.
And yeah, I guess we will have to just wait
and see what happens in the US. But on the
European side, definitely a lot of push from individual countries today.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
That brings up an interesting question. You know, if there
are differences in the maximum contamination limits across countries or
even states. You know, I know the EPA regulation clean
that up or should clean that issue up in the
States to some extent, But if there are differences in
(21:29):
the limits or differences in the regulations across regions. Is
your solution universally applicable? You have to customize in order
to comply with different regulations in different contamination limits across
regions or countries. With regard to your solution.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Great question. The simple answer is we customize that based
on the regulations that are set by changing, for example,
the treatment time. Right, So our customization goes as far
as do we need to do a fifteen minute treatment
or twenty five minute treatment to meet for example, one
hundred people to discharge the limit or a five ppt.
So this is how we vary this, right. The technology
(22:11):
stays the same, the energy inputs, the process inputs, they
all say the same. What we vary on is the
treatment time needed to reach lower higher regulatory limits. It
is a universal treatment, right, so we target all p
faus at the same time. So if one country, for example,
one state is limiting five compounds only and the other
(22:31):
one is limiting one hundred, our treatment just destroys all
the pfas at the same time. It's very non selective.
It's quite universal, right. But of course, if a customer
wants to reach one hundred ppt or fifty ppt. It's
a matter of the optimizing for all time in that case,
so the part does not change, the process changes, which
is easily applicable and sort of customized and optimized in
(22:54):
real time based on the customers need. And this is
also a little bit of future proofing here as well,
because we know that the regulations are changing. And this
is also pitched to a customer today. If you buy
some of the conventional technologies for them to adapt to
future regulations is going to cost you a lot in
terms of capics and stiling from scratch. If you're switched
to our technology to adapt to future regulations, you're just
(23:16):
paying for longer treatment times because the process is no longer,
so you don't have to make a fresh, brand new
investment that perspective, because it's so non selective and so universal.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
And taking a step back as well with regard to
the regulatory framework that you've seen emerge in the US
predominantly under the Biden administration, obviously, you know, are you
happy with what you've seen there? Do you think it
should be effective in addressing this issue, or are there
(23:46):
changes you think would be helpful in addressing the issue
more and more effectively. At a high level.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Of course, someone who's providing a treatment solution, I would
always say more regulations are always better. I didn't can't
think of a different answer, Right, Was it far enough?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Not? Really?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It limited six p FIS compounds. We have fifteen thousand
plus PFIs compounds, right, so you think about what set
scope and where we are. It's like a touching, like
you know, using your total tip touch the water. That's
how it felt. But it was still a really big
step because that was a big country like us coming
out and putting together our framework of how this looks
(24:28):
today and how this could shape and evolve in the future.
So it's a great first step of limiting six of
the most commonly found p FOS compounds and also putting
limits that a single digit discharge limits. That was really interesting,
so we're not doing one hundred ppt anymore. We were
targeting single p FOS compounds and putting them as close
as possible to the detection limit of the instruments today
(24:50):
even detect them in the water. So that was really interesting.
But I think there's a lot of room here to
include more and more p FUS compounds. We can easily
find hundreds of them every day in a drinking wattle
and a ground water. Six doesn't cut it. Is it
a good step forwards to start something? Absolutely, but it's
a long way to go, and of course the hope
(25:11):
was discontinuous. I right now, as I said before, this
just puts the whole thing a little bit into a
different perspective. Now if we are scaling that regulation to
more compounds or obviously just downscaling the whole thing now.
So that's a little bit of an interesting place that
I think the EPA and the new presidency finds itself.
But there's a lot of work to do. Fifteen thousand
(25:33):
p fast compounds is a toll order, I'm aware of it.
But six six is, let's say, a very interesting start.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And France's recent actions, which I believe we're primarily focusing
on the production side, like limiting products and imports of
products that are made with pfas and I know we've
seen some of that in individual US states as well.
Do you think that's effective? Do you think how long
would that take, I guess to put you out of
(26:01):
business if we kind of stop the production of it.
I'm going to guess the answer is not something you're
losing sleepover. But do you think they're going far enough
there and that will make it dent? And when we
might say that dent and.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Honest answer is no, it doesn't give us room to
worry about. But two different reasons, right, Because one thing is,
even if you were to ban pf US tomorrow, the
ways all these laws are structured, it just does not
completely take it out of the cycle today. Right. The
use cases where they're completely irreplaceable and no law will
ban them, like from semicon that's the use for example
(26:38):
medical devices, for example, aerospace applications. There is no other
replacement pief us today and you can't replace them, and
we simply can't go on living our lives without a
semicond devices. Right, So I know that use cases where
there is not replacement, it's too risky to even think
about replacing them. From cosmetics, textiles, yes, of course they're
better alternatives. Do we need can use BAX to use
(27:02):
you know, rang jackets instead of using PFIs And as
we can. So the use cases where we should remove
them from and they are removing it. But then there
are so many other critical large skal use cases where
we can't replace them, right, And that's one part of
the puzzle, right. The second part is even if everything
was to be magically replaced in the next decade or two,
which honestly, as a founder of a clean teguatech SATA,
(27:23):
would make me really happy to see. We need to
stop discharging these chemicals into a water. Absolutely. The bill
that we are seeing on the market for remediation of
our water that's already contaminated is staggering. Lemon. The French
newspaper came out with the article or a really great
(27:43):
investigative peace on this in January where they put the
bill on one hundred billion per year is the cost
of cleanup a befas of water in Europe one hundred
billion a year for the next twenty years in counting.
So this is the kind of numbers we are looking
at Pele to completely stop all cleanup, all production tomorrow
and just focus on remediation, focus on cleanup of contaminated
(28:07):
ground water, drinking water, soil. So yes, I think the
only reason to lose sleep is radious down and how
fast you can help, and not if the market is
drinking because unfortunately or fortunately for whichever you look at it,
it's a big pottom to solve and a big impact
to make remediation wise, are active contamination stopping wise?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
And you mentioned one hundred billion a year in Europe.
I guess I can go about this a couple of
different ways. But if I remember correctly, you talked about
ten thousand sites and you are a prowld of just
something like forty plus thousand sites in the US, would
it the map be that simple or do you have
an estimate about how much them that similar calculation might
(28:49):
be for the US market?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean, that's a great question. So in Europe, it's
it's not just ten thousand sites. We know of twenty
thousand sites plus presumed another ten to twenty thousand that
based on how water flows, they should also be PIFAs downstream. Right,
So it's not as simple math as saying we know
of twenty thousand sides. So it's it's one hundred billion
we know of twenty thousand today, and then based on
(29:13):
just the normal hydraulics of water, we know there's at
least twice more of these sides that we know of today, right,
And the numbers that they put together for this hundred
billion a year was really coming from the non known sides.
The number is obviously much much bigger than that. That's
the best what they said was the tip of the iceberg.
It's this one hundred billion per year that we can
say it's a huge histronical number in reality in Europe,
(29:37):
and the same is true for US, right because it
depends also about the concentration of this contamination, And from
my understanding of the US data that I've seen, if
you're talking about one hundred ppt hundred nartograms per later
in Europe contamination of groundwater, we're talking about at least
ten times higher in US in many states. So it's
even higher contamination because it has been going on for
(29:58):
much longer than in Europe, with three m the points
being there much longer. So I don't want to sat
comparing apples oranges, but I would say it's at least
one hundred billion for your even US, if not more, and.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
With opportunities potentially of that size with the regulatory backing
at least from the state level, if not the federal level,
likely to continue, do you get a senset of dusters
are actively looking for opportunities like an auxile to put
their money to work in and funding these types of solutions.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Absolutely. You know, water was never a very investable space
for VC's water tag receives less than one percent and
I'm not kidding here, less than one percent of all
the clean tech funding, not overall funding clean tech funding,
less than one percent goes to water. And that's changing.
We're seeing so many, so much interest from ecs. Where
(30:56):
you have newspaper articles coming out water is at new
climating bed freak. So I thought that's a newspaper article. Sorry, right,
but it's something we have seen implemented in our case.
We're raised two rounds today. The first round we raised
wasn't twenty twenty two, twenty two, Yes, where the round
came to us. See when not fundraising, we got a
great term sheet, we closed around and just last year
(31:18):
in December, we close our seed round, a sixteen million
dollar seed round, again without fundraising. We just got the
mbsheet and we closed around in a month literally. So
what I am seeing personally as a founder who has
raised two rounds, who's raised twenty six million in the
last four years, is a great appetite for water. Water
is investable because there's money to be made, something I
(31:40):
would not have predicted when I founded Augxile because I
was told no one invests in water. It looks very
different now. Four years plus after founding Auxel, we raised
twenty six million today without actually fundraising, And that's the
joke here.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
One additional question. I know we spent a lot of
time here today talking about PIFAs, but are there any
other markets that you're targeting above and beyond p FAZ specifically.
I know there's a focus on lead in drinking water
and some other types of contaminants, but is the focus
wholly on on pfas or the other types of water
(32:17):
contaminants we should have an eye on as far as
your company is concerned.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So our tech is really universal, so it will not
just destroy p fas. PFIs are just the hardest things
to destroy because the bond of carbon and floury is
so so strong. It's very hard to destroy that. So
if we can destroy that economically, we can destroy the
simple carbon hydrogen bonds. Carbon nitrogen bonds the easier one
to destroy, absolutely right, So, which means if you have
(32:41):
a customer who is a big pesticide contamination problem. They
can come and work with us, We work with them.
We have actually quite a few case studies published on
a website, or how we work with companies who have
pharmaceuticals in the water, how we work with customers who
have pesticides in the water. It's not a key focus
today just because the market is so heavily focused on
PIFAs that eighty plus percent the lead that we get
(33:03):
or inbounds are all p fast related. So we are
focusing on that because the market is asking us to
focus on that, right, But in terms of technology, we
can help last pharmaceutical customers ensure they're not discharging pharmaceuticals
like antibiotics into the water, and then that leads to
obviously anti anti anti microbial resistance problem in the water
in the future. So there are many other contaminants like that,
(33:26):
like PIFAs are not so toxic but are causing much
larger issues as well, and we can also treat that.
It's a matter of having the right customer with the
right pain problem and our billingness to pay and solve that.
In p file, it's very very clear the need the
problem and lack of a solution for other use cases. Again,
it's a very nuanced problem where pharmaceutical gover needs special
(33:48):
side producers. You know, chemical producers also have a problem
and they can also work with us, and we can
work with them. It's actually much easier for us to
help them than pi fas.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Thank you. It's just economically competitive, or there are other
solutions that start to be more viable.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I'm sure pharmaceuticals and pesticide actior carbon filtration are also
really good viable solutions as they are as they used
to be less safe for p FIST as well until
the regulation has changed. About what the customer has come
to us when they're doing pestive and manufacturing or power
cuticles is they're always left behind with the secondary waste problem.
If you absorve pharmaceuticals, for example, actipurt carbon, you're left
(34:28):
with this toxic, contaminated axpirit cobon full of pharmaceuticals. What
do you do with that? Mostly you burn them, You
send them for incineration, which is extremely costly and really
something that leads to a lot of health issues for
the stuff. And that's something they also want to change
in line with their sustainability metrics where they're trying to
reduce their pseudo emissions, and you can't reduce zerodo emissions
(34:49):
if you're burning your waist. So that's the problem that
they are facing. So even if it's a cheaper solution
exists today for a quick fix, it is not a
sustainable fix for them for long term, and that that
is why they would work with us. And the same time,
we also have to make sure we're cost competitive while
you offer them the USPS, and it is possible for
us to scale the technology for those use cases and
(35:10):
also be cost competitive there because we are opics, our
energy values is so so low, so there's a market
there as well for us to explore. It's just a
matter of focusing somewhere where only we can make the
biggest difference today, which is p FAUS. There's a questions
as there is no other solution today as can remove
these chemicals, all of these pifa us at these energy values,
(35:30):
there is nothing out there on the market like oxid today.
For other use cases there are solutions and then you
have to be cost competitive. So for us, it's a
no brainer, right, you go with it. There's a niche
that no one else console.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
That is really interesting and fairly encouraging, just given how
entrenched this problem is. Thank you so much for your
time today. I know I learned a lot, and thank
you for listening. You can find more information on wastewater
management by going to BIESGCO on the Bloomberg terminal. If
you have an ESG quandary or burning question you'd like
(36:03):
to ask BIS expert analysts, please send us an email
at ESG Currens at Bloomberg dot net. Thanks again for
joining today
Host
Eric Kane
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