Nanobubbles are about to blow you away.
In 2016, the California startup Moleaer used nanobubbles to improve aeration for wastewater treatment plants. No big deal, right? Yeah, but then came water tech guru (and Moleaer’s new CEO) Nick Dyner with visions of using the proprietary nanobubble pump in water treatment and mining, and to improve animal and plant health.
And it worked: Four years downstream and Moleaer has tripled in size. It has installed more than 1,000 systems globally and is now treating more than 225 million gallons of water every day in agriculture, aquaculture, surface water, and natural resources.
The growth brought a needed $9 million Series B funding led by S2G Ventures.
But hold up, let’s rewind to the nanobubble pump part.
With Molaere’s system, trillions of teeny-tiny air bubbles are pumped into water, flat-out saturating it with O2. At one 2,500th of the size of a grain of salt, these bubble babies can hang out longer, giving the oxygen more time to impact the liquid’s chemical makeup. We’re talking 83% more oxygenation than the water in any competing system.
Like Fiji water for the farm: Farmers use aerated water in plant irrigation to boost nutrient conversion and help nix water-borne illnesses in crops.
Moleaer claims their water can reduce crop loss to diseases by 50%. The results? They’ve seen increases in crop yields by 20%; berry size by 14%; yields of specialty crops by 25%; and biomass of salmon by 22%.
What’s next for nanobubbles: Moleaer is working with university folks to further research their systems for use in sustainable seafood farming, ocean restoration, algae reduction, replacing chemical washes for fruits and veggies, and more.
