10 Start-Ups to Watch 2026: Blue Activity uses bacteria to treat industrial cooling waterLars Havighorst, CEO and cofounder of the water treatme...
Published by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
10 Start-Ups to Watch 2026: Blue Activity uses bacteria to treat industrial cooling water
Lars Havighorst, CEO and cofounder of the water treatment start-up Blue Activity, says companies should be rethinking the chemicals used to keep this water clean. His approach is to replace conventional chemical treatments with bacteria.
Many industrial facilities use open cooling systems that repeatedly cycle the same water. After absorbing heat from equipment, the water travels to a cooling tower, where some water evaporates, carrying heat away. The remainder circulates through the system again.
But this extended use and exposure to air give microorganisms the chance to enter the system, attach to wet surfaces, and grow into slimy communities known as biofilms. Those deposits can inhibit heat transfer and reduce equipment efficiency while also harboring pathogens such as legionella.
Havighorst hadn’t given any of this much thought during his 15 years as a financial consultant. But in 2019, while working with a start-up focused on drinking-water systems, he read a study comparing conventional surface disinfection with probiotic cleaning—the counterintuitive idea that bacteria can make things cleaner. He thought he might try a similar approach in drinking-water systems struggling with biofilms.
After realizing that deliberately introducing microorganisms into highly regulated drinking-water systems would be difficult, Havighorst met Michael Simon, who had experience selling specialty chemicals for cooling-water systems. The two began testing the probiotic approach in industrial cooling with a trial customer, and after having success, they founded Blue Activity in 2021.
Operators typically dose cooling water with biocides, such as chlorine or bromine compounds. Unfortunately, oxidizing biocides are corrosive, meaning additional chemical treatment is required to protect the equipment. And because residual biocides can harm aquatic life, facilities may have to further treat wastewater.
Blue Activity aims to reduce the need for biocides by adding a mixture of Bacillus strains to open recirculating cooling systems. The company says the bacterial spores can produce extracellular enzymes that degrade organic deposits, causing them to lose cohesion and be carried away by the water flow in cooling systems. The firm’s water treatment package also tackles mineral scaling and corrosion while continuously monitoring the system’s performance.
It’s an intriguing concept, but Hans-Curt Flemming, a longtime biofilm researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, is skeptical that introduced bacteria can reliably establish themselves within an existing microbial community. Beneficial bacteria can be washed out or consumed by microbes already there or form biofilms themselves. But Blue Activity says that it doses the water with its strains often to maintain their concentration and that it aims to remove the deposits that microbes can colonize, not entirely replace the existing microbial community.
There is precedent for experimenting with biological alternatives to conventional biocides. The French biotechnology company Amoéba’s treatment relied on the predatory amoeba Willaertia magna, but the product failed to win European Commission approval. Estonia-based Sanitify markets a bacillus-based treatment intended to digest sludge and biofilm.
Lars Havighorst, CEO and cofounder of the water treatment start-up Blue Activity, says companies should be rethinking the chemicals used to keep this water clean. His approach is to replace conventional chemical treatments with bacteria.
Many industrial facilities use open cooling systems that repeatedly cycle the same water. After absorbing heat from equipment, the water travels to a cooling tower, where some water evaporates, carrying heat away. The remainder circulates through the system again.
But this extended use and exposure to air give microorganisms the chance to enter the system, attach to wet surfaces, and grow into slimy communities known as biofilms. Those deposits can inhibit heat transfer and reduce equipment efficiency while also harboring pathogens such as legionella.
Havighorst hadn’t given any of this much thought during his 15 years as a financial consultant. But in 2019, while working with a start-up focused on drinking-water systems, he read a study comparing conventional surface disinfection with probiotic cleaning—the counterintuitive idea that bacteria can make things cleaner. He thought he might try a similar approach in drinking-water systems struggling with biofilms.
After realizing that deliberately introducing microorganisms into highly regulated drinking-water systems would be difficult, Havighorst met Michael Simon, who had experience selling specialty chemicals for cooling-water systems. The two began testing the probiotic approach in industrial cooling with a trial customer, and after having success, they founded Blue Activity in 2021.
Operators typically dose cooling water with biocides, such as chlorine or bromine compounds. Unfortunately, oxidizing biocides are corrosive, meaning additional chemical treatment is required to protect the equipment. And because residual biocides can harm aquatic life, facilities may have to further treat wastewater.
Blue Activity aims to reduce the need for biocides by adding a mixture of Bacillus strains to open recirculating cooling systems. The company says the bacterial spores can produce extracellular enzymes that degrade organic deposits, causing them to lose cohesion and be carried away by the water flow in cooling systems. The firm’s water treatment package also tackles mineral scaling and corrosion while continuously monitoring the system’s performance.
It’s an intriguing concept, but Hans-Curt Flemming, a longtime biofilm researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, is skeptical that introduced bacteria can reliably establish themselves within an existing microbial community. Beneficial bacteria can be washed out or consumed by microbes already there or form biofilms themselves. But Blue Activity says that it doses the water with its strains often to maintain their concentration and that it aims to remove the deposits that microbes can colonize, not entirely replace the existing microbial community.
There is precedent for experimenting with biological alternatives to conventional biocides. The French biotechnology company Amoéba’s treatment relied on the predatory amoeba Willaertia magna, but the product failed to win European Commission approval. Estonia-based Sanitify markets a bacillus-based treatment intended to digest sludge and biofilm.
Tags
- Drinking Water Treatment
- Cooling Systems
- Water Treatment Systems
- water treatment
- Water, Waste Water Chemical & Treatment
- Estonia
- Water Treatment Chemicals