When Simon Isaksson received his PhD at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in 2019, he and his research leader at the time Martin Andersson, decided to take the results further in a startup company. Since then, the technology’s unique way of purifying water, and recover additional resource, has attracted interest. Now, RE:TV, a sustainability organization founded by Britain's King Charles III, has selected the company as one of its "showcases", and is spreading knowledge about the innovation through the organization's channels with millions of followers.
“The video that RE:TV has made and is spreading helps us to raise awareness about the problems that exist around resource management today, which is very important to us. We also hope that it will lead to new contacts with people and companies who needs our solutions to make the most of resources from water in a precise and efficient way”, says Simon Isaksson, CEO and founder of the startup company Retein.
The company develops water filters that uses nature’s finest water purification to provide a new, unique way to produce very clean water energy-efficiently, while recovering additional resources. The technology is flexible and can be applied in many different areas, such as the food industry, desalination and dialysis, wastewater treatment and industries with particularly severe pollution.
Concrete way to make a difference
Simon Isaksson describes the path from his time as a doctoral student to being CEO and founder of a startup company today as a journey of constant learning. Since he is a curious person, he believes that it has given him a huge drive in life.
"I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to continue working with what I developed during my doctoral studies towards making a difference in a very concrete way, while at the same time it is a developing process to use problem solving in other dimensions in addition to the purely technical," says Simon Isaksson.
Chalmers' innovation environment has provided valuable support along the way and contributed with everything from early market analyses in collaboration with the innovation office to the funding and knowledge of taking a project from research to entrepreneurship provided by the company's first investor Chalmers Ventures. But despite the support that exists in those around you, life as an entrepreneur involves some difficult situations.
"For example, we work a lot to develop the technology through collaborations with others, which is rewarding and fun, but sometimes also challenging. Recruiting the best people to our team is also a challenge that we are pleased to have succeeded in so far," says Simon Isaksson.
The fun moments are the great collaboration with colleagues. Special events that have stood out a little extra are when the company received awards such as Norrsken Impact 100 and the Ray of Hope Prize.
Strong startup community with valuable knowledge
To those who want to take their research further in a startup company, Simon advises to get in touch with others who have experience of having done similar things before.
“No entrepreneurial journey is identical, but we have a strong startup community here at Chalmers and in Gothenburg that you can learn a lot from in advance just by asking," says Simon Isaksson.
In addition to the visibility that the RE:TV platform offers them right now, Simon and his colleagues are focusing a lot on the technical development to optimize filter prototypes that they have developed, At the same time they are starting to set up pilot projects with potential customers to test their solutions with them. The development of the technology is conducted in a hybrid between research and utilization. The team, which Simon calls fantastic colleagues, consists of a mix of researchers at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and the company's employees.
RE:TV’s video and article about Reteins research and innovation
More about Retein
Reteins novel technology enables precise and sustainable recovery of valuable resources from water, including the clean water itself. It adapts Nature’s finest separation (cell membrane channel proteins) for use in the recovery of high-purity resources like clean water and lithium, from any accessible water. This patented biomimetic molecular separation technology was developed at Chalmers University of Technology with the purpose of accelerating the transition towards a resource-efficient and sustainable world from the bottom up. The aim is to transform the supply of resources, enabling convenient access to sustainably sourced high-quality materials and in doing so, we reimagine a material-optimized world.
More about RE:TV
RE:TV is a showcase for the inspiring innovations that are emerging all over the world in response to the climate and biodiversity crisis. Our films provide a platform for the growing community of change-makers around the world. By raising awareness of new technologies, we hope to encourage businesses to explore how they can use these new technologies and ideas to accelerate the transition to Net Zero, and, at a wider level, to address the increasing anxiety that we all feel about the climate.
RE:TV was founded in January 2020 by His Majesty King Charles III (then HRH The Prince of Wales) as part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, and his long-standing commitment to environmental issues continues to inspire our work.