How Oxyle Plans To Rid The World’s Water Of Forever Pollutants

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How Oxyle Plans To Rid The World’s Water Of Forever Pollutants

Fajer Mushtaq has been worrying about water for as long as she can remember. The co-founder of cleantech start-up Oxyle, which is today announcing a CHF2.8 million ($3 million) pre-seed funding round, Mushtaq is originally from the Kashmir region of India, but conflict forced her family to relocate to Delhi. “We went from living somewhere full of lakes and rivers to a city where there was almost no water in the summer.”

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Mushtaq’s parents were both doctors; while she chose a different career, she knew she would also want to do something of social value. And working on her doctoral thesis at ETH Zurich, she spotted her opportunity to contribute – she and her co-founder at Oxyle, Silvan Staufert, developed a new technology for cleaning water contaminated with micro-pollutants – the "forever" chemicals that are so difficult to get rid of.

It is one of the world’s most pressing problems. Water all over the world is contaminated with tiny molecules from pesticides, pharmaceutical products and other sources of toxicity. Industries such as the chemicals and agriculture sector are creating more of this waste in the water that they use during manufacturing processes. But tackling the issue is really difficult.

That’s where Zurich-based Oxyle comes in. Mushtaq and Staufert have developed a new material that destroys micropollutants, breaking them down into completely harmless molecules through a process of oxidisation. Unlike other processes designed to clean water contaminated in this way, which rely on absorption, filtration or even simply burning the water, there is no end waste product to worry about.

Mushtaq’s parents were both doctors; while she chose a different career, she knew she would also want to do something of social value. And working on her doctoral thesis at ETH Zurich, she spotted her opportunity to contribute – she and her co-founder at Oxyle, Silvan Staufert, developed a new technology for cleaning water contaminated with micro-pollutants – the "forever" chemicals that are so difficult to get rid of.

It is one of the world’s most pressing problems. Water all over the world is contaminated with tiny molecules from pesticides, pharmaceutical products and other sources of toxicity. Industries such as the chemicals and agriculture sector are creating more of this waste in the water that they use during manufacturing processes. But tackling the issue is really difficult.

That’s where Zurich-based Oxyle comes in. Mushtaq and Staufert have developed a new material that destroys micropollutants, breaking them down into completely harmless molecules through a process of oxidisation. Unlike other processes designed to clean water contaminated in this way, which rely on absorption, filtration or even simply burning the water, there is no end waste product to worry about.

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