Clinty Chemicals – Optimising Purafloc®: Advanced Modelling and Characterisation of a Liquid Activated Carbon Solution for Emerging Contaminants in Water Treatment
A liquid carbon-based product called Purafloc is already being dosed into UK drinking water systems to strip out pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and other micro-pollutants, but its manufacturer now needs to understand exactly how its chemistry works so it can be made more consistently and scaled up. The problem is that Purafloc’s formulation and production have been refined largely by trial and error. Without a data-driven understanding of how its surface properties and nanoscale structure affect adsorption, the company cannot reliably fine-tune manufacturing or adapt the product for tougher contaminants. This project, run with the ASTUTE team, will use materials characterisation and machine learning to map those relationships. If successful, the work could make Purafloc production more efficient and predictable while maintaining its regulatory approval from the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate. More importantly, understanding the underlying chemistry could allow Clinty Chemicals to optimise the product for PFAS—the persistent “forever chemicals” that current treatment methods struggle to remove. That would give water utilities a drop-in solution requiring no new infrastructure, helping them meet tightening regulations without major capital investment.
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Clinty Chemicals manufactures Purafloc, an advanced liquid adsorbent designed for water and wastewater treatment. This innovative product effectively removes pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, pesticides, and other pollutants from drinking water and wastewater. As far as we know, Purafloc is unique in the market, significantly outperforming competitors and providing a critical solution for water treatment operators facing regulatory compliance challenges. Purafloc is approved by the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate and is currently in production, supplying three UK water utilities. Clinty Chemicals is actively working with additional utilities to expand its adoption across multiple sites. Growing market demand is driven by increasing awareness of micro-pollutants' impact on human health and aquatic ecosystems. A key advantage of Purafloc is its ability to be dosed directly into existing treatment systems without requiring significant capital investment. As a liquid formulation, it seamlessly integrates into current processes, adsorbing pollutants before being removed through standard treatment methods. No other product on the market matches Purafloc's combination of efficiency, ease of deployment, and performance. However, a challenge lies in understanding the balance between the formulation and manufacturing efficiency. Until now, improvements have relied on trial and error, limiting the ability to fine-tune production while ensuring consistent product performance. This project, in collaboration with ASTUTE, aims to develop a data-driven understanding of key formulation parameters using material science (surface characterisation, nanoscale analysis) and data analysis (machine learning) to understand their impact on Purafloc's adsorption capabilities. Beyond improving manufacturing scalability and efficiency, gaining deeper insight into these interactions could lead to further product enhancements. In particular, this research could help optimise Purafloc for the removal of emerging contaminants such as PFAS, which are notoriously difficult to eliminate from drinking water. By refining our manufacturing process while maintaining Purafloc's superior performance, this initiative supports Clinty Chemicals' commitment to innovation, regulatory compliance, and sustainable water treatment solutions.
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