PFAS, commonly known as forever chemicals, have become an increasingly prominent issue in the cultural zeitgeist. Concerns are rising over the levels of PFAS we are exposed to regularly, as these chemicals have been linked to a range of health issues, including testicular cancer, fertility issues, and developmental defects during pregnancy.
One of the big problems of these difficult-to-tackle chemicals is that they bio-accumulate in the body and levels are rising, as reported in the
Royal Society of Chemistry’s PFAS campaign.
“These chemicals are in lots of everyday products and are found throughout the environment,” said Madeleine Bussemaker, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Change Makers Venture Mantisonix. “They need to be removed and then destroyed.”
“Health-related costs have been estimated in the order of €84 billion annually across Europe and the UK. So that's a lot of health-related issues that can be avoided if these chemicals are cleaned up effectively.”
And that’s what Mantisonix is looking to do with their ground-breaking application of ultrasound.
About Mantisonix’s technology
Currently the main way to destroy PFAS is through concentration and then high temperature incineration. “Incineration has some challenges when treating these chemicals,” said Madeleine, “because it can also create another pollution source of greenhouse gas like fluorinated gases, and carbon dioxide.”
“We use a really high frequency sound wave, and that sound wave propagates and creates little bubbles, which oscillate and get bigger and smaller with the high and low pressures of the sound wave, respectively,” said Madeleine. “The bubbles then collapse, and these collapse events create very unique chemistry that enables us to destroy these forever chemicals.”
Using this novel application of ultrasound, Mantisonix can break the PFAS down into harmless fluoride salts. These fluoride salts which can then be removed and potentially reused in manufacturing electronics or discarded safely.
“One of our advantages is that we can put our technology alongside removal and concentration technologies on site. This means that companies don’t need to transport their waste to one of a handful of high-temperature incinerators across UK and Europe.”
Down the line there’s additional potential to use this technology on other pollutants, although the initial focus is on PFAS as they scale their venture.
The journey
Spun-out of the University of Surrey, Mantisonix was born from Madeleine’s academic background in ultrasonics and sonochemistry and her co-founder Mehrdad Zare’s prior background in engineering and technology development.
In 2024, Mehrdad undertook the iCURE programme and carried out thorough market research, “If you get good traction, they offer you a next stage, which is an application for non-dilutive grant funding from Innovate UK, which covers you 100% and is only by invitation.”
Following a successful application, Mantisonix was then able to pursue the next step of the journey and incorporate their company. As they ramp up their development and start work on a pilot plant, they’re also expanding their team and bringing on more chemists.
The challenges
When asked about the challenges faced, the answer is a wry laugh. As is often the case for a deep tech chemistry start-up, time is their biggest enemy. “I think one of the challenges is that this market is moving super quick and we just need to be running all the time to keep up with it,” explained Madeleine.
“I've been in academia for my whole career so far, so it's a very different timeline.”
From a technical perspective, they’re also faced with the fact that they’re “the first people doing this technology for this purpose, so we have to design everything from scratch.”
And whilst they’re now settled in what they affectionately call the Pod, where they have a lab space and will develop their workshop for initial construction and testing, it has been a challenge finding somewhere that can meet their needs and allow them to work with customers and prove their technology.
The support from Change Makers
Mantisonix joined Change Makers in our 2025 cleantech cohort. When asked about their reasons for joining, they said “There’s quite a lot of different accelerator programmes you can go for, but this one's really focused on chemistry and the challenges that chemistry type companies have. So that was a draw card.”
They also felt that running a start-up of this kind doesn’t come with a standard guidebook, there’s a lot of assumed knowledge in entrepreneurship and these businesses all need to learn different things and at different stages. They saw Change Makers as an opportunity to check what they had learned so far, broaden their horizons with relevant experts, and validate their approach.
“Mehrdad and I recognise that there are things that… had we been with Change Makers earlier, we would have avoided quite a lot of headaches.”
One of the ways that Mantisonix have been receiving support is through our series of masterclasses, including the recent Building Skilled Teams masterclass, which enabled them to take another look as their strategy for hiring. “It made us realise that we need to think; actually, what kind of person do we realistically need next? We were going to hire a development assistant, but from this we realised we’re not at the stage where we can send someone out to do these things. We have to do it, so rather we need someone to take these other roles off our hands.”
One benefit that Mantisonix have found so far is the networking opportunities with other changemakers. “It’s been quite useful hearing the headaches of the other companies and that they’re not distant from your own.”
The networking has also had the unexpected benefit of leading them to a project with another changemaker, which has allowed that company to test an approach to cleaning their material and gave Mantisonix a proof-of-concept study for another real-world application of their process.
Going forwards, Change Makers will support Mantisonix with our Venture Mentoring programme and our investment expertise.
What’s next
As their team expands and they work on their pilot plant, Mantisonix are gearing up to their first field trial and proving that their concept can work in real-world applications, and that it can work consistently in different waste matrices.
“This is the first time we're really taking it out of the lab and putting it in the field. So that’s perhaps the next few months, and then I think once we have that, then next year we'll aim to do another four or five pilots.”