It takes a rare kind of vision to stare down saltwater and see opportunity. William J. Walker, Ph.D., did just that, and then built the chemistry to prove it. After four decades in geochemistry and mining, he didn’t just study water, he learned its secrets. In 2018, he turned that obsession into Badwater Alchemy, a company turning brine into business with zero-valent iron nanoparticles that pull the salt, toxins, and cost out of desalination.
This week, Badwater Alchemy announced a fresh $2 million seed raise, bringing total funding above $4.4 million. Quiet round, big signal. The Seattle-based company, now expanding through Texas, is redefining how industries treat produced water, seawater, and agricultural runoff. Its process operates at roughly 10% of the energy cost of reverse osmosis and a quarter of thermal methods. For a sector that’s been stuck on the same wavelength for decades, this feels like new sound breaking through static.
The technology’s not theory, it’s been field-tested. EPA-certified labs have validated it. Research has landed in WATER journal. And Devon Energy handed over some of the most contaminated produced water in the Permian Basin, Badwater Alchemy cleaned it up and sent it back ready for use. That’s chemistry you can build a business on.
Leading the charge is CEO Geoff Deane, Ph.D., a technologist whose resume jumps from clean energy to medtech to wind turbines with precision and vision. Pair him with Founder and CTO William J. Walker’s scientific depth and VP of Engineering Ozgur Emek Yildirim, Ph.D.’s innovation horsepower, and you’ve got a leadership team that turns complexity into clarity. Add VP of Business Development Rajendra Ghimire, Ph.D., and the commercial execution speaks for itself.
This $2 million isn’t for headlines, it’s for horsepower. It scales lab capacity in Seattle, accelerates production of modular desalination units, and pushes deeper into the $10 billion produced-water market. It’s how Badwater Alchemy converts breakthrough science into scalable impact.
Here’s the takeaway. Real innovation doesn’t always announce itself with fireworks, it proves itself in the data, the patents, and the field results that change how industries operate. Badwater Alchemy isn’t chasing buzzwords. It’s building the chemistry that keeps the world running when clean water becomes the new oil.
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