Optimizing desalination: how Gradiant and Anurag Bajpayee are engineering efficiency in water treatment
- Rethinking desalination for industrial applications
- Technology overview
- Applications across sectors
- Market trends and industry growth
- Research and development
- Challenges ahead
- Outlook
As freshwater scarcity accelerates due to climate change, population growth, and industrial demand, desalination and water reuse have moved from peripheral interest to central focus in global water strategy. With projections showing that nearly two-thirds of the global population could face water stress by 2025, governments, researchers, and companies are exploring how to make desalination more energy-efficient, affordable, and scalable.
Among the emerging players in this field is Gradiant, a Boston-based water technology company founded in 2013 by engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). One of the company’s co-founders, Anurag Bajpayee, has focused his career on thermodynamically optimized water treatment systems tailored for industrial use. Under his leadership, Gradiant has developed and commercialized several technologies that aim to improve the energy footprint, recovery rate, and economic viability of desalination and wastewater reuse.
Rethinking desalination for industrial applications
Conventional desalination processes—such as reverse osmosis (RO) and multi-stage flash distillation—have well-documented limitations. While RO is widely used due to its lower energy requirements compared to thermal methods, it typically has reduced efficiency when dealing with high-salinity or chemically complex waste streams. Additionally, brine disposal and membrane fouling remain persistent technical challenges.
Gradiant approaches desalination from a different angle, focusing not only on treating seawater but also on recovering clean water from industrial effluents. These waste streams often contain high concentrations of dissolved solids, organics, or heavy metals, making them unsuitable for traditional RO systems. By developing modular treatment platforms designed for industry-specific water chemistries, Gradiant positions its systems as both economically viable and environmentally compliant alternatives.
“Our core premise is that water treatment needs to be more customizable,” Anurag Bajpayee said in a 2023 interview. “In industrial settings, no two wastewaters are identical. You need to engineer solutions accordingly.”
Technology overview
Gradiant's portfolio includes several proprietary technologies that build upon thermodynamic and chemical engineering principles:
Carrier Gas Extraction (CGE): A humidification-dehumidification process that uses a carrier gas (typically air) to evaporate water from a saline feed and subsequently condense it as purified water. The process mimics natural atmospheric cycles and can operate on low-grade thermal energy, including industrial waste heat. CGE has been deployed in facilities requiring high recovery of clean water from complex brines.
Selective Contaminant Extraction (SCE): Designed to isolate and remove specific contaminants from wastewater, SCE enables the recovery of valuable solutes (such as lithium or other metals) while reducing the need for total water removal.
RO Infinity (also referred to as CFRO): An advanced version of reverse osmosis optimized to handle high total dissolved solids (TDS) by integrating forward osmosis and high-pressure brine concentration steps. This system extends the traditional limits of membrane-based desalination.
The company also offers a Water-as-a-Service (WaaS) model, allowing industrial clients to access water treatment capacity without upfront capital investment. Facilities pay for performance—usually based on volume of clean water produced or reused—rather than owning and maintaining the infrastructure.
Applications across sectors
Gradiant’s technologies are primarily used in industrial sectors with high water demand and strict discharge regulations. These include semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, energy production, textiles, and food and beverage manufacturing.
In one deployment at a semiconductor fabrication plant in Southeast Asia, Gradiant’s integrated treatment system enabled the facility to reuse over 95% of its wastewater, reducing dependence on municipal water sources. In oil and gas applications, CGE systems have been used to treat produced water with high salt concentrations and recover usable water for operations, reducing the environmental footprint of extraction.
According to the company, its systems have been installed in more than 2,500 facilities across 25 countries, with a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions—areas with high water stress and industrial density.
Market trends and industry growth
Water technology is increasingly attracting private investment, particularly in response to regulatory shifts and the financial risks associated with water scarcity. In 2023, Gradiant announced a $225 million Series D funding round, led by private equity and infrastructure-focused investors. The round brought its total funding to over $400 million and reportedly pushed the company’s valuation over $1 billion.
The growth reflects broader momentum in the water sector, which historically has seen less innovation than energy or transportation. However, with industrial water use accounting for approximately 20% of global freshwater withdrawals, and much higher in certain countries, efficiency in treatment and reuse has become a key sustainability target.
According to a 2022 report by the International Desalination Association, global desalination capacity now exceeds 110 million cubic meters per day, with industrial desalination growing faster than municipal systems. Companies like Gradiant, which focus on modular, on-site treatment tailored to industrial water chemistry, are seen as critical players in expanding capacity without overloading municipal infrastructure.
Research and development
Gradiant maintains a research and engineering center in Boston, with additional hubs in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. The company holds more than 250 patents worldwide, spanning desalination processes, brine minimization techniques, and intelligent system controls.
Anurag Bajpayee, who was named to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list in 2019, remains active in the company’s technical roadmap. His academic work at MIT, which focused on the thermodynamics of desalination, continues to inform Gradiant’s platform design and material choices.
Recent research initiatives include integrating machine learning algorithms into treatment systems to optimize operations in real time, as well as exploring hybrid desalination models that combine thermal and membrane methods to maximize recovery.
Challenges ahead
Despite advances in technology, desalination still faces economic and environmental barriers. Energy intensity remains a concern, particularly in regions where grid power is carbon-intensive. Brine disposal also poses ecological risks in coastal areas, especially where outfall volumes are high.
Gradiant and other firms are working on reducing the brine footprint by using zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) systems and recovering useful materials from concentrate streams. However, ZLD systems are costly and complex, requiring careful lifecycle cost assessments.
In addition, while private sector engagement is growing, large-scale implementation still depends heavily on regulatory frameworks, utility partnerships, and public acceptance.
Outlook
Optimized desalination and water reuse are likely to play an increasingly central role in global water strategy, especially in high-consumption industries and water-stressed regions. Companies like Gradiant, which integrate thermodynamic modeling, chemical specificity, and commercial scalability, are contributing to a shift in how water is managed at the industrial level.
As water becomes more of a constraint on economic development—particularly in rapidly industrializing nations—the pressure to recover, recycle, and minimize usage will only intensify. Desalination, once seen as a technology of last resort, is being reengineered for the front lines.