Company – Treatech

TREATECH

TreaTech is a Swiss Cleantech company founded in 2015 by EPFL engineers.
Our team has a strong know-how in heterogeneous catalysis, process and energy systems integration, and multi-objectives modeling and optimization.

We are very proud to be supported by outstanding companies and institutions.
Our current focus is on the development of a demonstration unit to reveal our technology's potential.

Our Vision

Our mission is to address the increasing problem of clean water availability in all regions of the world by creating a low-cost, environmentally friendly liquid waste solution resulting in fresh-water production.
Current liquid waste solution rely on landfill and incineration, which are expensive, polluting and do not allow for the recycling of the valuable products contained in the liquid waste such as fresh water, biogas and salts.

TreaTech is developing a ground-breaking treatment technology that will enable an eco-friendly treatment of the ever-increasing quantities of wastewater while recycling its valuable by-products and most notably, clean water.

Our team

Management team

Frederic Juillard

Founder & CEO

Frederic is a Swiss-French engineer and entrepreneur. He completed his Master’s degree at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) and UC Berkeley.

He was the co-founder of Naphtis, a project dealing with biofuel production from biomass waste, where he acquired experience in feasibility demonstration and prototyping, as well as the skills required to move from an academic project to a business-oriented organization.

Frederic worked for two years as a scientific collaborator at IPESE group (EPFL) before he incorporated TreaTech in October 2015.

Dr. Gael Peng

Co-founder & CTO

Gaël is a Swiss-French chemical engineer. He completed his PhD’s degree in Energy Research, with specialization in bioenergy and heterogeneous catalysis, at the Paul Scherrer Institute and Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL).
He acquired experience in the development of high-pressure processes and in biomass conversion technologies. In May 2016, he joined TreaTech as CTO, his first mission being to lead the technology validation phase.

Dr. Alberto Mian

Co-founder

Alberto is an Italian mechanical engineer. He completed his PhD’s degree in Energy Research, with specialization in numerical optimization of chemical and energy systems design, at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL).
He acquired experience in software modeling and optimization of industrial systems, including renewable energy technologies.

Alberto filed TreaTech’s patent in early 2015 and was the first to join the team as a co-founder, his mission is to lead the technology optimization phase and plant scale-up.

Advisory board

Scientific board

Prof. Jeremy Luterbacher

Jeremy is a young and brilliant professor who recently returned to EPFL as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor and head of the Laboratory for Sustainable and Catalytic Processing. He graduated from EPFL and MIT in 2007 and pursued his doctoral studies at Cornell University, where he worked on biomass pretreatment in high-pressure CO2-water environments combined with fluorescence imaging. He then moved to University of Wisconsin-Madison as a postdoctoral scholar.

Prof. Daniel Favrat

Daniel got his Mechanical Engineering degree from EPFL in 1972 and his PhD also from EPFL. He then spent 12 years in industrial research laboratories in Canada and Switzerland. From 1988 to 2013, he was full professor and director of the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory (LENI) at EPFL. During that period he was successively director of the Institute of Energy and director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. From August 2013 he works at EPFL Energy Center first as director ad interim and now as director technologies.

Prof. Suren Erkman

Suren studied philosophy and biology at the University of Geneva and earned his PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of Technology at Troyes.  After working for several years as a science and business journalist, Suren founded several companies (Sofies, ICAST, EIC, ROI). Suren is also a professor and head of the industrial ecology group at the University of Lausanne (IDYST).

Prof. Jerry W. King

Jerry has been involved in critical fluid technology for over 50 years, particularly in the application of SFE, SFC, and related pressurized fluid technologies as applied to foodstuffs, lipid substrates, natural products, and renewable biomass. This has included reaction chemistry, the use of critical fluids in analytical chemistry, and materials modifications. He has published over 250 papers primarily in this area and various other aspects of separation science. Formerly he has worked in industry, at the USDA-ARS center in Peoria, IL, Los Alamos National Lab, and is an Emeritus/Adjunct Professor at the University of Arkansas.

Prof. François Marechal

François holds a process engineering degree (1986) and a Ph D from University of Liège in Belgium. In 2001, he moved to Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) and has been nominated in 2013 Adjunct Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Institute of EPFL where he is heading the Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group (IPESE). François is conducting research in the field of the analysis and the design of sustainable energy systems. His activities are focusing on the development of computer aided methods applying process integration and optimization techniques. He has produced more than 150 scientific papers in the field of energy efficiency in the industry, industrial ecology and sustainable energy systems in urban areas.