Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Safety Company set new water well being advisories for PFAS, or “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.” These so-called “perpetually chemical compounds” not often break down within the surroundings and are generally utilized in client items similar to waterproof clothes, non-stick pans, and meals packaging. PFAS can finally find yourself in our ingesting water, soil, and air. Scientific research have proven that publicity to PFAS can result in hostile well being outcomes, in line with the EPA.
Now an up-and-coming startup based mostly in Seattle is taking up PFAS.
Nigel Sharp, Brian Pinkard, and Chris Woodruff are the co-founders of Aquagga, a 3-year-old cleantech {hardware} startup creating know-how to interrupt down and destroy PFAS. The corporate traces its roots to analysis finished on the College of Washington and College of Alaska.
Sharp, CEO, has years of expertise in constructing startups. Pinkard, CTO, has a PhD from the UW with a give attention to hazardous waste destruction. And Woodruff, COO, has a deep engineering background.
Aquagga supplies PFAS destruction companies for water engineering and environmental remediation tasks. Its containerized system makes use of excessive temperatures and pressures to interrupt the carbon-fluorine bonds that maintain PFAS molecules collectively — one of many strongest chemical bonds in nature. In keeping with Pinkard, the know-how fully destroys PFAS molecules and eliminates wastewater contamination with no poisonous byproducts. This successfully reduces water and soil contamination, serving to keep sustainable environments.
“The one answer to PFAS is to bodily clear it up from the surroundings, seize it, and break it down. We’re engaged on that latter step,” Pinkard mentioned. “The key sauce that we offer is definitely taking these molecules and breaking them aside into protected minerals. We finish that cycle and take away PFAS from the world.”
By 2025, Sharp estimates the potential market measurement for PFAS to be about $80 billion a yr within the U.S. He provides that PFAS destruction probably makes up 5% to 10% of the market — about $4 to $8 billion a yr.
PFAS was the main target of a Each day Present episode in September. Host John Oliver defined that even when customers select to be accountable, PFAS can nonetheless enter their bloodstream and result in harmful well being results if factories don’t correctly get rid of waste.
Whereas important progress has been made to take away the necessity for PFAS in industrial makes use of, there’s nonetheless excessive demand for PFAS in on a regular basis client merchandise, in line with the Aquagga.
The crew selected the title “Aquagga” for its know-how as a result of “quagga” is an extinct mammal resembling the African Zebra, and the startup’s purpose is to make a optimistic social affect as a “zebra” firm, in line with Sharp. He mentioned the corporate aligns with the Zebras Unite motion that emphasizes startup ethicality and cooperation over competitors.
Aquagga at present has 10 full-time workers and goals to be an authorized B Company sooner or later, an accreditation given to corporations that meet the very best requirements of social and environmental efficiency.
Aquagga gained first place within the EPA International PFAS Problem and the Alaska Airways Environmental Innovation Competitors. It has additionally acquired grants from the Nationwide Science Basis, the EPA, and the U.S. Air Pressure. Via these federal grants and awards, Aquagga has raised about $2 million. As well as, Aquagga raised simply over $500,000 of personal angel funding from angel traders.
Sharp might be featured within the sustainability class of the third season of GeekWire’s Elevator Pitch sequence, airing later this summer season.
We caught up with co-founders Sharp and Pinkard for this Startup Highlight characteristic. Proceed studying to study extra about Aquagga.
Our enterprise mannequin and clients: We’re a full service firm and we usually tag alongside on the again finish of different remedy options which are used to filter PFAS out of, for instance, water. Our clients are sometimes prime contractors who’re already doing environmental website remediation tasks or giant water engineering corporations, who’re really placing in engineering companies for water utilities and for wastewater utilities. There’s an enormous alternative for us to work with the Division of Protection which has loads of websites closely impacted with PFAS.
“PFAS aren’t going anyplace.”
The amount of PFAS destruction we are able to deal with and our scaling limits: Our present programs do 1 to 2.5 gallons per hour. Actually, it’s a really easy know-how to scale. So count on to be orders of magnitude bigger than that throughout the subsequent two years. By the top of this yr, we’ll be as much as 10 to twenty gallons per hour with a system. Placing our complete mixed effort, you need to have the ability to course of someplace near 30,000 to 40,000 gallons an hour within the close to future, and that makes an actual dent to the issue.
The neatest transfer we’ve made up to now: A dangerous change from fully distant unfold over a number of states to in-person on the Maritime Blue Incubator program in Tacoma, Wash. in 2021. Past workplace area, it provided us entry to a moist lab to do a few of our preliminary testing and know-how proof circumstances, and we arrived at a second that allowed many within the South Puget Sound to get behind us and spotlight our arrival which helped with sustaining our momentum.
How the financial uncertainty is affecting our enterprise and the way we’re getting ready: Like all startup, our superpower is agility and the power to pivot to alternatives and modify to rising challenges. The macro financial uncertainty, happily, doesn’t apply to a few of our federal funding sources (apart from inflicting delays). It has made it tougher to hone in on particular fundraising valuations with enterprise capitalists, however we’re nonetheless seeing robust market pull and the necessity for our companies. As we frequently say internally, PFAS aren’t going anyplace, so it’s an inevitability, only a query of precedence.