Porelio

Scaling a material from grams to kilograms is where most lab breakthroughs quietly die. That's exactly the phase we're in at Porelio, and we're looking for a Master's student to join us in it. We're hiring a student assistant at our lab in Potsdam-Golm. You'd run synthesis experiments, optimize process parameters, track batch-to-batch consistency, and help produce the materials going into real pilot projects with customers. Not a coffee-and-dishwashing role. Your data feeds directly into our pilot plant. You should be enrolled in an M.Sc. in Chemistry, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering or similar, with hands-on lab experience. One thing to know before applying: this is lab work, so it happens in the lab. You'll need to be at our Golm facilities at least three days a week. If that commute works for you, the rest is flexible. Full details here: https://lnkd.in/ep7Mfkut #DeepTech #Hiring

Porelio has been named one of the Falling Walls Foundation Venture 100 Science Start-ups to Watch in 2026. 597 nominations from 60 countries. 100 selected. The list recognises scientists building companies around hard problems: new therapeutics, diagnostics, quantum computing, high performance materials, and filtration breakthroughs. Porelio was selected for its functionalized ordered mesoporous silica platform, a selective separation technology that recovers critical metals like palladium and platinum from industrial streams, and removes pollutants like PFAS where conventional chemistry breaks down. One platform, engineered pore by pore, applied wherever selectivity below 1 ppm decides the economics. The 25 finalists pitching at the Falling Walls Science Summit on 6 November will be announced on 11 August. https://lnkd.in/e2WRA96D Thank you to Science & Startups and Technische Universität Berlin for the nomination, and to Falling Walls Foundation and the Advisory Board for the recognition. #DeepTech #CriticalMaterials #CircularEconomy

Thirty years on a lab bench. That is how long FOMS have been waiting for someone to solve their scaling problem. Functionalized Ordered Mesoporous Silicas. Behind the long name sits a simple idea: a material that binds exactly what you tell it to bind and lets the rest of the stream flow past. Everyone could see the potential. But grams in a lab cannot recover the palladium lost in an industrial stream or clean a water supply. Together with my cofounders Javier Silva Mora and Nikol Michailidou, we built the first continuous flow process that makes FOMS at industrial scale. 30 times faster than the classical route. That work now has backing. Porelio closed its first equity round: €2.4M, oversubscribed, led by Faber, with Polytechnique Ventures, Grupo Tecnológica and better ventures, following €2.5M in earlier grants. The capital does one thing. Kilograms per day become tons per year, and proof of concepts across Europe become commercial partnerships. The chemistry was never the bottleneck. Scale was. Now we get to prove it. Thank you to Rita Sousa, Cécile Tharaud, Gaspard Devissaguet, Fernando Franco and Tiago Morelli for believing in the three of us, and to our business angels who backed us before there was much to see. You are all funding what comes next: more pilots in real industrial streams, and the production capacity to serve them.

Nikol Michailidou and Abraham Alpizar brought home 2nd place at the Berliner Sparkasse Gründerpreis 2026. €1,500 in prize money and recognition from a jury that understands what it takes to build in chemical manufacturing. Thank you to Berliner Sparkasse and Science & Startups for creating a competition that takes hard technology seriously. Congratulations to Blueprint Biomed on 1st place — well deserved. #DeepTech #Gründerpreis

Even active carbon struggles to remove them from our water. Short chain PFAS like TFA are difficult to remove, but deep-tech start ups can help. If you look into the PFAS ("forever chemicals") topic today, the reality is staggering. These toxic compounds have accumulated everywhere: in our waters, our food chain, and ultimately, inside our bodies. While traditional solutions like activated carbon do a decent job catching long-chain PFAS, the industry faces a massive blind spot: short-chain and ultra-short-chain PFAS. Because they are so small, they behave similarly to the water itself, easily passing right through standard filtration systems. An adsorption struggles because of competition with omnipresent ions in the water. In my opinion the biggest problem is that many long chain PFAS that can be degraded in waste water treatment plants get cut down into smaller pieces. Often resulting in their shortest relatives like trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and these are hard to catch. For the latest episode of Innovate and React, I met down with Dr. Rhea Machado, CEO and co-founder of Porelio, to discuss how innovative chemistry is finally tackling this critical environmental challenge. Porelio has developed a game-changing technology using functionalized ordered meso-porous silica, which have been previously difficult to produce in larger amounts. Here is why their approach changes everything: 🏎️ The "Chemical Autobahn": Unlike the unordered, sponge-like structure of activated carbon, Porelio’s material features highly ordered nanoscale pores that allow incredibly fast mass transfer. 🎯 Tinder for Molecules: They can precisely engineer specific chemical "arms" onto the pore surfaces to selectively target, bind, and trap exactly what needs to be removed, even the most stubborn short-chain PFAS. 🏭 Stopping it at the Source: By focusing first on industrial wastewater where concentrations are highest, they aim to cut off the flow before these chemicals ever reach our drinking water. Scaling a hardware-heavy B2B chemistry startup simultaneously on the production and application side is a massive orchestrational challenge. Yet, teams like Porelio prove that the European green chemistry scene has the drive to bridge the gap between academic brilliance and real-world impact. 🎧 Listen to the full episode about the science of meso-porous silica, the realities of scaling a deep-tech startup. Links in the comments. Many thanks to chemstars for letting us record at their event. #Chemistry #Innovation #Sustainability #WaterTreatment #DeepTech #GreenChemistry #PFAS #Startups

Porelio is in the Top 100 Early-Stage Deep Tech Startups in Europe. We're pitching at DTM100 in Berlin on May 20 at 1 PM, in the Manufacturing and Robotics track. Here's the number that should worry anyone in PGM refining: 3 to 10 percent of palladium and 15 to 40 percent of rhodium are lost to liquid streams that current polishing technology cannot recover economically. At global secondary supply volumes, that is tens of tonnes a year. It is not a refining problem. It is a concentration problem. Below 10 ppm, in complex industrial streams, conventional separation chemistry breaks down. Ion exchange and solvent extraction lose selectivity. The same physics fails on PFAS at the low end. That gap is the missing concentration layer before recovery or destruction. The economics do not work without it, and the industry is just starting to connect those dots. If you're at DTM26 and working on critical raw materials, industrial water, or PFAS regulation, find me. That's the conversation I want to have. #DeepTech #CriticalMaterials #CircularEconomy

🚀 Big News in Water Innovation! Meet the Selected Companies for 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 💧 We’re excited to unveil the 𝟯𝟱 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 selected to pitch at 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲, taking place 𝟯–𝟰 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗮𝗿𝗵𝘂𝘀, 𝗗𝗲𝗻𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸! Chosen by a panel of 𝟰𝟬+ 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀, these pioneering startups stood out from a highly competitive pool — and are ready to present breakthrough solutions shaping the future of water. From advanced treatment and desalination to digital water and industrial efficiency, this cohort represents the cutting edge of the sector. 📍 Where: Aarhus, Denmark 📅 When: 3–4 June 2026 AQUABATTERY Atoco Bio Clean Carbon BluAct Technologies AG Calejo Hybrid Intelligence AB CellX Biosolutions Dottir Labs EvCon GmbH FloodWaive Predictive Intelligence Holloid HULO HyKin Energy A/S Klarifi LTDRY AG Metal Morph Mode Labs NALA Membranes Noah Water Solutions NSS Water Ozo Innovations Porelio Puraffinity REDstack Resistomap Oy Retein Seamoretech Segura Sensmet Ltd SMART OCEAN SmartBrønd Solaq SolarDew Clean Water B.V. Spectromarine - predictive water analytics Vāsuqi VERTUO 💡 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗕𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: ✅ Meet top-tier investors, corporates, and fellow innovators in water tech ✅ Discover scalable solutions tackling global water challenges ✅ Schedule curated 𝟭:𝟭 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 with key industry players ✅ Unlock new partnerships and investment opportunities 🎟️ Secure your spot → https://lnkd.in/dpeRxaj5 With 100+ participants, curated networking, and high-level deal flow, this is Europe’s most focused water investment event. #TTWaterTech26 #TechTour #WaterInnovation #Sustainability #ClimateTech #StartupPitch #InvestmentOpportunity #Aarhus #FutureOfWater

Our Recap of IFAT 2026: The PFAS industry just synchronized around a deadline: January 12, 2028. That's when Germany's PFAS limit gets 5X stricter (0.02 µg/L). Water operators are detecting PFAS in their systems for the first time right now. They have 18 months to implement solutions. Many exhibitors at IFAT were racing that same clock. What we saw: the full value chain. Activated carbon, liquid carbon + membranes, ionic resins, advanced oxidation, biological treatment, incineration. Everyone playing a role. But here's the thing: there is no single technology that solves PFAS. Long-chain, short-chain, ultra-short (TFA)—each requires different approaches. The industry needs to move from "which technology wins?" to "how do these work together?" At Porelio, we're focused on the ultra-short gap—TFA, where others plateau. But we're only valuable in the chain, not instead of it. The real challenge isn't finding solutions. It's integrating them. Thanks to everyone who spoke with us at IFAT—Dr. Rhea Machado, Beatriz Casasola, Javier Silva Mora—your insights deepened our understanding of this. #PFAS #WaterTreatment #IFAT2026 #Innovation  

PFAS in your process water. Precious metals leaving with your waste stream. Both are costly. Both are solvable. Porelio will be at Hannover Messe 2026, meeting industrial operators, water treatment engineers, system integrators, and recyclers who are ready to move beyond conventional separation technology. Our FOMS adsorbent platform is engineered for selectivity at the molecular level, validated across industrial pilots in wastewater treatment, metal recovery, and fuel cell applications, and backed by granted patents in the US, EU, and China. If your operation faces regulatory pressure on PFAS or leaves recoverable metals on the table, this conversation matters. Our CEO Dr. Rhea Machado, and our Water Process Engineer Beatriz Casasola, will be glad to meet you. Come find us at Hall 11, Stand B38, or contact us to book a meeting in advance. #HannoverMesse2026 #PFAS #PreciousMetalRecovery #IndustrialWater #CircularEconomy #Cleantech #Porelio