While humans and animals appear to consume most of the world's water, heavy industry consumes half of it. That's why the business sector is looking for new ways to recycle water, especially as droughts intensify.
Some of the world's most important industries, such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, textiles, mining, renewable energy and electricity, consume large amounts of water. Now, new companies are looking for ways to recover and recycle water as cheaply as possible.
According to Statista, the global water and wastewater treatment market is expected to reach $5 trillion by the end of this decade. Most of these now involve harsh chemicals and consume a lot of energy, but companies like Xylem, Veolia and Boston-based startup Gradiant are working to reduce costs and energy while eliminating chemicals.
“We take highly contaminated wastewater, which contains solvents, dissolved salts and organic matter, and then we eliminate all liquid waste,” said Prakash Govindan, co-founder and chief technology officer of Gradiant.
Anurag Bajpayee and Govindan founded Gradiant in 2013 as an MIT spinout
Gradiant's technology mimics the way nature produces rainwater. The wastewater is heated and pumped into a humidifier and mixed with ambient air. When the two interact, they are heated into vapor, leaving contaminants behind. Using proprietary technology, the steam is transferred to a tower filled with cold clean water. As the two mix, the air cools and drops fresh water, like rain falling from clouds. According to Gradiant, this process cuts traditional costs in half.
“Other technologies may be able to recycle 50 to 60 percent of the water, but we can recycle 99 percent of the water,” Govindan said.
Gradiant is the first water purification unicorn. Its client list is impressive, with Coca ColaBMW, Pfizer and Arnock. It claims to save 1.7 billion gallons of water per day, equivalent to the water consumption of 48 million people. The company booked more than $500 million in new orders in the first half of this year, making its growth trajectory attractive to investors, according to the company.
Mark Danchak, co-founder of General, said: “Scaling these technologies is difficult. It's easy to find the product, but it's much harder to find a complete end-to-end solution for customers, and that's what Gradiant does.” Innovation Capital Partners, Gradiant investors.
Gradiant is also backed by Warburg Pincus, M&G Investments, Formation 8, Clearvision Ventures and GRC. To date, it has raised $228 million.
CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this article.