DetoXiFy: Clean Drinking Water Is a Human Right
Written by Ryan Green
Plastic pollution in the ocean and access to clean drinking water globally are two of the biggest issues facing our natural world today. One of our recent BlueSwell cohort graduates, DetoXyFi, is attempting to address both. The company’s ambitious team, born from the labs of MIT and Harvard, has faced countless challenges along their journey, taking them in stride as they continue to understand what a pathway to commercialization may look like for their technology.
DetoXyFi manufactures plastic-free drinking water filters made from waste wood. We checked in with them recently on some recent wins and new developments. We spoke to co-founder & CEO Dhananjay Goel to learn more about their post BlueSwell journey. Discover how they got started doing this vital work and where they’re headed.
Dr. Rohit Karnik at Demo Day in the New England Aquarium, March 2024
What is the problem that DetoXyFi is addressing?
Goel: Growing up, I spent much of my childhood in the hills of northern India. It was a beautiful time spent with family, walking with my grandmother, playing cricket, but things became tough when we had to ration water. Often, we had one bucket to use for bathing, and two bottles for drinking. What this creates is a feeling of massive hopelessness because we were surrounded by water, just not clean drinking water. When you can see water around you but can’t drink it. And the problem isn’t unique to my upbringing, communities in the south-central US are disproportionately affected by this. It’s not limited to one community or another, but communities of color, minorities, etcetera are unequally affected. We want equal, equitable access to clean drinking water.
We envision a world in which clean drinking water is a human right. 2 billion people globally are drinking water from sources contaminated by feces. 25% of people drink unsafe water. We want to shift the power back to the people, using biodegradable materials, and reduce plastic going back into the oceans.
What we do is create a small biodegradable water filter out of waste wood, converted through a chemical process that removes bacteria, viruses, protozoa, etc. Our filters are 60% cheaper and 10x more effective than others of their kind. In India, some coniferous trees are invasive, so the government wants to limit their growth. When they fall naturally, they are harvested for timber, but the outer bark of the trunk isn’t useful for making furniture. This part of the tree contains a lot of fibrous tissue which makes it perfect for our application. We can work with sawmills and local farms anywhere to give us the discarded pieces that we find value in.
What is the story behind DetoXyFi?
Goel: I always wanted to work in this space. I am also a serial entrepreneur, which means I failed a lot of times (HE LAUGHS). I mostly wanted to work in this space because of that lived experience I mentioned earlier. I moved to Boston to begin my studies and met with Rishon and came across Professor Karnik’s research at MIT. Prof Karnik was at the time working on decentralized water technology, and both Rishon and I strongly believed that decentralized water tech is the way of the future. Power must shift to the hands of the people. Between the three of us, there were a lot of complementary skills. And then, in the last few years, we have created a prototype, lab tested it, field tested it, won competitions, published research, and now we’re going to be working on making our first sales.
What are some challenges that you’ve had to navigate?
Goel: Well, water technology is not software technology, meaning with a hardware product it can be challenging, you really need to get it right. On top of this, the last time water filtration technology was updated was UV filtration in ‘97, which just shows how challenging it can be to build new filtration methods, not to mention having them approved, and then widely adopted. There are hurdles we face in meeting standards and certifications.
We have now, however, crossed the hurdle of the gestation period of the research. So now we face the question of how to scale up product development and serve our customers. We are trying to build customer trust through all of this, but also attempting to build out our team at the same time, so there are a few things we’re balancing at once.
What will be DetoXyFi’s focus for the next few years?
Goel: Because our team is quite engineering heavy, we will try to focus our next few years on the expansion of our sales network as our product develops. Our objective is to build a platform so that our product can be used in informal settlements in urban areas but also by military units in remote locations and people affected by floods.
All of these applications would require drinking water in their own unique ways, so we want to use our core technology but modify it in different ways. This way we can work with the military, disaster relief, and many others. We aim to sell in both India and the US.
DetoXiFy’s pitch at BlueSwell’s Cohort IV’s Demo Day in 2024
How has being a part of the fourth cohort of BlueSwell helped you along your journey?
Goel: Being on the founding team of a startup, you hear many “no’s” on a daily basis, so to have someone backing us means the world to us. The biggest help was to know that we have these incredible, capable leaders behind us. Of course, the cash support and programmatic elements were a massive help. In our field, the gestation period is extremely high, so a certain type of patience is required and BlueSwell gave us that. Above all, it was the relationships and reliability. For example, we’d say, “We need your help in these three ways” and even after the program I am speaking to someone from the BlueSwell team in less than 24 hours.
What are some recent wins you can share with us?
Goel: We have been compiling lots of important research, such as surveying 305 houses in India to gain specifics and continue to tease out the problem. Our product has been sent to both the US and Indian militaries, and we are continuing to ride the momentum of this part of our journey. We have received positive feedback from both military establishments and plan to ship our first units soon.
As an aside, we won “Best Paper” Presentation in IIT Madras from 100+ papers across 15 countries. We also conducted hugely valuable research over the past year, including market research with students at Netaji Subhash University of Technology. We received an invitation from NRDF (The National Disaster Response Force) for a DetoXyFi Product Demonstration. Additionally, we won The Because Accelerator Impact Product Pitch Competition & recently completed The Because Accelerator Spring 2024 cohort. In addition to new hires and new lab space, we are thrilled about our progress and look forward to a future where everyone has access to clean drinking water.
If you would like to join us in our journey, we’d love to hear from you at dhananjay@detoxyfi.com.
To learn more about DetoXiFy: https://www.detoxyfi.com/
ABOUT BLUESWELL:
BlueSwell, a partnership between SeaAhead and the New England Aquarium, takes a whole-ocean approach to fighting climate change and advancing the blue economy. The program focuses on bridging gaps between innovators, ocean experts, industries, and the venture community. BlueSwell leverages SeaAhead’s bluetech domain expertise, network, and experience in building companies, and the Aquarium’s 50-plus year history of using marine science to protect the ocean and marine animals to ultimately convert ocean-focused concepts into profitable, sustainable businesses.
To learn more about BlueSwell, click here.