Three Technologies That Are Yet to Make It by Antoine Walter📈 Business Developer 🎙️ Host of the "(don't) Waste Water" podcast 🎹 Rock ...

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Three Technologies That Are Yet to Make It by Antoine Walter📈 Business Developer 🎙️ Host of the "(don't) Waste Water" podcast 🎹 Rock ...
Three Technologies That Are Yet to Make It by Antoine Walter

📈 Business Developer 🎙️ Host of the "(don't) Waste Water" podcast 🎹 Rock Star (well... Pianist.)
$12.2 Million is a lot of money. Unless it isn't.

This week, 374Water announced a registered direct offering that would get them that exact amount. But with their stock down roughly 60% since their NASDAQ listing (where they debuted at about $2.6), you might think it's not the best of news.

Or is it?

374Water is one of the rare water tech companies that managed to take Supercritical Water Oxidation (SCWO) from the lab to... well, somewhere closer to reality.

And they're not alone in that limbo between "massive potential" and "mainstream adoption."

That made me want to look with harsh kindness at three technologies that have been "the next big thing" for quite some time:

Supercritical Water Oxidation
Let's start with our opener, of course - after all it's around for 40 years.

Somewhat, SCWO is like water's superhero form - when you heat and pressurize it beyond its critical point, it gains incredible powers to destroy pretty much anything organic.

PCBs? Gone. PFAS? Destroyed. The most stubborn pollutants? No match.

An artistic representation of SCWO
Yet, despite: Multiple companies trying (374Water, General Atomics, SCFI, Aquarden...)
Clear applications (biosolids, PFAS...) A working technology (>99.9% destruction efficiency) ... we're still waiting for that breakthrough moment.

Why? Because heating water to 400-650°C under massive pressure isn't exactly a walk in the park. Salt deposits and corrosion are like kryptonite to our superhero. 🧪

Forward Osmosis
Remember Oasys Water? $70 Million in funding, world's largest coal-to-olefin project... and then, poof! They ran out of runway trying to find their market.

The pattern tells us something: Forward Osmosis is probably an amazing technology looking for its perfect use case.

But since Jean Antoine Nollet's first experiments during the XVIIIth century, somebody is still to make it "big"

Now, that's not to say that some clever players are not actively working on finding the martingale:

Trevi Systems successfully protects its cash while carving out its niche in island water supply
Forward Water Technologies Corp makes promising strides in lithium recovery, especially from produced water brines
Even Aquaporin A/S's pivot to RO doesn't mean they're giving up - they're just being smart about their resources

UV LED
That one is around since 25 years, and granted the Minamata Convention banned mercury in 2013, one would think it should have killed mercury lamps by now.

It's smaller, instant on/off, and doesn't contain, well, that said mercury. Perfect, right?

Tell that to Typhon Treatment Systems. They built the world's first municipal-scale UV LED system, treating 30,000 m³/day. Technical success? Absolutely. Commercial success? They went into liquidation in 2023.

(Though like a LED-powered phoenix, NUUV rose from their ashes)

What Can We Learn?
These three technologies tell us something about water tech adoption that goes beyond Paul O'Callaghan's famous 35-year rule:

The "Superior Technology" Trap
Just because something is technically superior (SCWO destroys PFAS better, UV LED is mercury-free, FO uses less energy) doesn't mean it will win.

The water industry doesn't need perfect solutions - it needs solutions that work well enough and are simple enough to operate.

The Market Creation Challenge
Sometimes, the hardest part isn't developing the technology but finding its sweet spot.

Forward Water's success in lithium recovery shows that your technology's best market might not be the one you originally designed it for.

(PS: if you want more proof of that, go watch the results of 2016's Masdar project!)

The Scale-Up Dilemma
All three technologies work beautifully at small scale. But scaling up means facing new challenges:

For SCWO: corrosion and salt deposits become exponentially more problematic
For UV LED: the economics of replacing hundreds of mercury lamps gets tricky
For FO: membrane costs and draw solution recovery remain challenging at scale

So what's next? Despite these challenges, I'm optimistic. Why? Because:

Regulation is catching up (think PFAS for SCWO)
Technology keeps improving (UV LED follows Haitz's law)
Markets are evolving (lithium boom for FO)

The question isn't if these technologies will make it, but when and in what form.

And maybe that's the real lesson here: success in water tech isn't about being the best technology, but about finding the right application at the right time.

PS: One more thought here
374Water is not the only company that sought fresh cash this week, as LiqTech also did. It made me consider adding ceramic membranes to my list. Would I have been fully out of touch if I had?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

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