CarboNet chemistry solves the most confounding challenges of liquid/solid separation, offering products that work more efficiently, quickly, and safely than their peers.
CarboNet is an advanced materials company rethinking the role of chemistry in wastewater treatment. We focus on building smarter, cleaner, more efficient ways to separate solids from water—whether it’s in food and beverage, industrial processing, or municipal systems.
Traditional treatment chemicals weren’t designed with today’s operations in mind. They overdose easily, struggle with variable flow, and often trade short-term results for long-term costs like excess sludge, failed KPIs, or clogged equipment. We created a different approach.
Our chemistries are built to perform in real-world conditions, lower total cost to treat, and simplify how treatment runs day to day.
“The most technologically innovative water treatment application I have laid eyes on this decade. Excellent in helping us operate within spec, and in simplifying our overall process. It’s the difference between a system that just meets regulations and one that’s set up to accelerate and scale.”
“I remember on one site there were the charred remains of an exploded tank and a crew member recounted how it had blown up and sent a car 50ft into the air. Everyone laughed and shrugged without missing a beat.”
MU: Bill, Barry brings you aboard. You’ve had a successful career in tech, you understand complex markets. What’s your first impression of the water treatment industry?
Bill: We went down to the Permian in West Texas. There was a company working with chlorine dioxide—the kind of stuff that if you screw up you create mustard gas.
MU: Totally safe.
Bill: Totally. They had 18-foot trailers with all this equipment and an “explosive proof” house where they mixed stuff. I remember on one site there were the charred remains of an exploded tank and a crew member recounted how it had blown up and sent a car 50ft into the air. Everyone laughed and shrugged without missing a beat.
MU: So, just like SaaS software.
Bill: Yeah. No strategic sales. No value equation conversations. No “total costs” and stuff like that. It was all about price. Things have changed, especially as we’ve grown with and beyond the Permian. But that’s where we started.
Mike: The Permian is not like any other place. It’s a boom market, and a market that’s provided the U.S with energy independence. But it hasn’t been operating for decades. It doesn’t have established rules and norms. You don’t publish white papers and take years of permitting and regulatory approval to get going. If things work and it’s the right price, people buy it.
MU: So—the right place for a young company experimenting with water chemistry?
Amielle: In our case, yes. We really lucked into things.
MU: How so?
Amielle: We were in discussions with a customer and initially working on lowering iron levels in water, almost like a coagulant. But then their head of water treatment asked if we could get rid of polyacrylamide. They hated using it. It’s shitty to deal with. It’s inconsistent…
Bill: …people despise PAM…
Amielle: So we went back to the lab and the guys figured it out pretty quickly.
MU: This is SimpleFloc, yeah?
Amielle: Yeah. We kinda cracked the case before we even understood what we had done. And they loved it.
Bill: We solved a huge pain point.
MU: In what way?
Bill: SimpleFloc is a no-make down solution. There’s no dry polymer. No concentrate to mix. You don’t need make-down equipment, and you don’t need water for make-down. Our totes just show up and they pump it directly into the line. No babysitting.
MU: Babysitting?
Bill: Crews don’t need to mix anything so they don’t need to adjust anything. Like, before us, they were mixing chemicals every hour. And not just during the day. Like, 1am, 2am, 3am…
Amielle: Just painful.
Bill: And cost is everything in the Permian. And we just made a bunch of costs go away. So not only was our product cheaper than PAM, but it removed all this OPEX and CAPEX.
Mike: Also—we didn’t just succeed with a customer. We succeeded with THE customer. They went on to become the dominant market leader and that built our credibility.
Amielle: We started getting introduced to everyone.
MU: I think I read you had captured more than half of the produced water market within two years.
Bill: Shh. But yeah.
Amielle: Crews really love us. They threaten to quit if people don’t use our product.
Bill: We also hit at a time when the younger crowd were coming out of their MBAs and taking management roles. They were seeing that our stuff was cleaner and safer. And the accountants were seeing it's cheaper. And the operators were seeing that it actually worked and was easier to manage.
Amielle: Word spread like wildfire and it just, it took off.
“Cationic has broad applications. But it’s kinda like playing in a dive bar. It’s unsexy. But anionic? It's being used to stop freshwater from disappearing permanently. ”
MU: So you build a franchise on an anionic flocculant. Now you’re releasing a cationic product. If this was the music business, is this a new hit single?
Bill: To start, it wouldn’t be a single. It’d be an album. Anionic is a single. You iterate on the same thing—v1, v2, v3, etc. Cationic is more like a collection: you need variations for different industries, applications, and geographies. But, precisely because it can be applied so broadly, it’s massive. The customers in this space are enormous.
MU: So now you’re front-lining Glastonbury or Coachella.
Mike: It’s more like playing in a dive bar.
Bill: Huh?
Mike: Cationic has broad applications—and Bill’s right, big customers—but the applications are kind of invisible and a bit unsexy. Like, cationic will make sure ponds don’t turn into sludge or tar pits. Your lakes will be crystal clear. But anionic? I mean, it's being used to stop freshwater from disappearing permanently.
Amielle: If we’re sticking with this analogy, let me play the band manager for a sec. What excites me with cat is that it’s an unlock: new markets, new customers, and—yes please—new revenue. And each new unlock expands our platform which, in turn, allows us to experiment more and have an even bigger impact…
MU: What Mike was saying…?
Amielle: Yes, on society and the world at large. Saving the water table, amazing. Clean lakes? Check. But now we have the capability to do bio-flocculants and targeting agents that are a huge net positive.
MU: In what way?
Amielle: Like removing thousands of acres of coal ponds that would otherwise go to landfill, and diverting the fly ash into cement, which then reduces net-new CO2 production. Or cutting chemicals entirely out of water treatment with organic flocculants, which helps decontaminate the water table.
Barry: The key is for us to be maniacally focused on where the tech is heading and where there is market demand. There’s just a ton of opportunities and possibilities. Our job is to be very thoughtful about what to pursue, with whom, and when.
Mike: That extends to talent, too. It’s important to me that CarboNet be a home for extremely talented people who can use our platforms to create an impact at scale.
MU: You said something to me about “the Bell Labs of water”
Mike: Exactly. We’re commercially driven, as Barry said, but we’re also investing in R&D and the next generation of scientists, engineers, and crew who want to solve important, gnarly problems.
MU: Like the coal ponds...
Mike: Right. You have two twentysomething women leading our work in resource recovery. Their results may change how an industry works and how governments and regulators think about water.
We may have originally stumbled into this venture, but I’m really proud of being able to create that kind of space for innovation.
“There are a lot of greybeards out there—guys with 40 years in the space—who smacked us on the back and said “we’ve been trying to do something like this for decades” and are kind of thrilled to see NanoNets emerge onto the scene.”
MU: You don’t get this far this fast without attracting unwanted attention.
Bill: Is it unwanted?
MU: You tell me. I can’t imagine the folks selling billions of dollars of PAM are super excited that your product works ten times better and cuts out 90% of their product.
Bill: I don’t think the battle lines are that clearly drawn. A lot of this is like statecraft: interests vs allies kind of thing. We’re actively working with big players to advance the state of the art.
Amielle: Also, remember that PAM is just one of a hundred chemical SKUs for the big guys. In some cases it’s a rounding error. Don’t get me wrong—there’s fierce competition for customers—but lots of times it’s not a zero-sum game.
MU: Barry, you’re the Bain guy. What’s the road ahead look like?
Barry: I think Bill and Amielle are right—it’s more about building partnerships than drawing lines in the sand. This may surprise you if you’re looking for a rebel alliance vs the empire narrative—we have a lot of supporters in those big companies. If the chemistry that Mike invented doesn’t one day win him a Nobel, it certainly has made fans out of many in the industry.
Bill: Yeah, there are a lot of greybeards out there—guys with 40 years in the space—who smacked us on the back and said “we’ve been trying to do something like this for decades” and are kind of thrilled to see NanoNets emerge onto the scene.
Mike: I can see a path where we continue developing our own unique products and selling direct, but also partner with companies that have reach so that new chemistry can move forward and have an impact faster.
MU: This sounds like the dream of every indie filmmaker: my vision, but with studio distribution power.
Amielle: Yup. Everything Everywhere All At Once. Could be our tagline.
Mark: I much prefer “clean chemistry for dirty water.”
Bill: Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean it’s good.
“We want this company to have an impact on the planet, on industry, and our people. So the one and only corporate policy is no assholes.”
MU: Let’s talk about lasting impact, such that it is for a 5-year old company. Barry—can you pick up on Mike’s comment about talent? You’re big on corporate culture.
Barry: The first place to talk about is our one and only corporate policy. Which revolves around a certain type of person…
MU: What type of person?
Barry: The kind of people we’ve all had to work with at some point…
MU: Barry—I think I need to hear you state the policy.
Barry: [Sighs] No assholes, Mark. No assholes.
MU: There we go.
Barry: It’s not just our employees, either. It extends to customers, investors, advisors—everyone. It’s that old Drucker line about culture eating strategy for breakfast. We’re very aware of that. We want this company to have an impact on the planet, on industry, and our people. Inside and out. So great people first and foremost.
After that, the focus is on always asking the same questions: Do we have the best team? Do we have the best chemistry? Do we have the best customer experience? If we’re answering those truthfully, and building around it, then we have a solid chance of winning.
MU: What does winning look like?
Bill: Adding to the water table.
MU: I haven’t heard you say that before.
Bill: Everyone is talking about carbon neutral, or maybe slowing down drawdown. Our audacious goal is to get to the point where our chemistry and processes are actually adding water back into the table, into the aquifers.
MU: Amielle, Mike—let’s shrink this down and end on a personal note. You’re both parents with young kids. What do you hope your work will mean to them, whether it’s about water or just about being crazy enough to ride this wave.
Amielle: Oh, interesting. Well, it’s twofold for me. I want my daughter to find herself in a work environment where she can thrive—and I hope that by me being a founder she’ll know she has options, that her goals don’t have to be limited by some manager or regressive policy.
As for water, well…I worry about simply finding a nice beach or body of water in ten years that doesn’t have garbage in it. Or drinking water without chemicals. So yeah. I know my work is important now, but I hope it pays off for her and others in years to come.
MU: Mike? How about you?
Mike: I grew up in the B.C interior in a house with a pond in the front and creek out back. Me and my sister would build paper boats and race them in the creek, and we’d explore the pond for all its critters. I remember during spawning season it would be black with tadpoles. Just filled with life. Now, recently, we took my daughter out to Jericho beach, along with a microscope…
Bill: Of course.
Mike: ...and we’ve been looking at microscopic things in the pond. Kind of like when I was a kid. She really likes that. And it’s been fun to share with her. I hope that there will always be life for her to explore, and that water plays a vital part of that.
Mark Ury is a founder, operator, and occasional writer. He currently advises CarboNet on brand and marketing. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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