In Mexico, around 10 million people face a shortage of drinking water. When it does arrive, it’s often intermittent or contaminated with heavy metals such as chromium, lead, mercury, and metalloids like arsenic. These pollutants—often undetectable in water since they don’t alter its smell, color, or taste—can increase the risk of serious diseases such as cancer, or cause damage to organs like the kidneys, liver, or nervous system.
“In our country, more than 17 states—mainly in the central and northern regions—are affected by these substances and lack an effective solution,” says Miguel Ángel López Zavala, CEO and founder of Envintecs, a science-based spinoff from Tec focused on sustainable technologies for water treatment, organic waste management, and bioenergy generation.
For over a decade, this researcher from the School of Engineering and Sciences has been developing membrane technology to remove water contaminants.
The team’s idea was to design a low-cost, energy-efficient, and sustainable solution compared to existing methods, particularly one tailored for rural and underserved communities.
The Composition
Through Envintecs, the researcher and his team are working on two products: a granular filter and a ceramic membrane filter. Both use surface adsorption technology that, under lab conditions, can remove up to 97% of heavy metals and metalloids. In the case of lead and mercury, filtration efficiency reaches as high as 100%.
The filters are made from natural materials such as clay, perlite, and iron. The main difference between the granular filter and the ceramic membrane lies in their form: the granular filter contains a compound in the form of tiny particles—up to one millimeter in size, much like sand—that can be placed inside cartridges of any shape.
Meanwhile, the ceramic membrane filter looks like a rectangular block, similar to a construction brick, with thin layers of the compound that contain microscopic pores as small as one micron—50 times thinner than a human hair. It also removes bacteria and suspended solids, López Zavala adds.
How the Sustainable Filters Work
When water flows through the filters, metals and metalloids stick to the surface of the filtering material; however, the water still requires disinfection.
The size of the filter depends on the amount of water to be processed. For instance, ceramic membranes are better suited for industrial environments as part of a modular system, where the blocks can be arranged according to filtration needs.
In the case of granular filters, flow rates are set. For example, in a household, a cartridge (60 cm long and 8 cm in diameter) can filter between 200 and 450 cubic meters of water per day. Its lifespan is four to five years, with maintenance required about twice a year.
López Zavala also points out that once filters capture contaminants, they remain hazardous for the ecosystem. To tackle this, the team developed a treatment that repurposes them as construction materials. For instance, the granular compound can be mixed with cement or concrete to encapsulate, neutralize, and stabilize the metals, preventing their release into the environment.
Additionally, the ceramic membrane blocks are designed so that, after their useful life, they can be reused as conventional bricks and incorporated into walls or other structures.
An Alternative for Rural Communities
Unlike reverse osmosis filtration, which requires high pressure and heavy energy use, Envintecs’ technology works with minimal pressure—or even gravity alone.
In practice, this means that filtering household water only requires installing a filter that runs on the natural pressure of a rooftop tank or elevated cistern.
“We set out to address this issue mainly with peri-urban and rural communities in mind, where many people don’t even have access to water or electricity—and the only source available is contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants. We designed a low-cost, low-energy technology that relies on locally sourced, highly available materials and, once it reaches the end of its lifespan, doesn’t create another contamination problem.”
Envintecs Aims to Scale Production
Envintecs is currently in talks with other companies to scale up production of these filters for industrial-level manufacturing and commercialization.
López Zavala explains that the granular filter has already reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 8—meaning it has proven effective in simulated environments—and could hit the market by late 2025. The ceramic membrane is at TRL 6: it has been validated in the lab, and the team is working on optimizing its production, building prototypes, and testing them under real-world conditions.
The Tec spinoff is already a registered company and also provides consulting and solution development in water treatment. For example, it is involved in projects that treat wastewater to generate electricity, design systems to harvest and use rainwater, and develop methods for treating and reusing gray water.
After conducting market studies, the team designed a business model with two main goals: offering the product to residential households as well as to water bottling plants and treatment facilities facing heavy metal contamination.
To launch operations, Envintecs is seeking initial investments of around 11 million pesos. The researcher hopes that within five years, the team will already have its own production plant.
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