Trash to Treasure: Reclaiming Phosphorus for the Food Production Cycle
Derek Long (left), Matt Oriente, and Daisy Burns show off their filter prototype at Demo Day on March 6th, 2025. Photo credit to Johnathan Clancy at Blue Wave Imagery.
HydroPhos Solutions is tackling two urgent global challenges: the depletion of phosphorus, a non-renewable resource essential for agriculture, and the environmental crisis of eutrophication caused by excess phosphorus runoff into waterways. By developing an innovative phosphorus filtration system that utilizes biochar as a base, HydroPhos extracts valuable nutrients from wastewater and resells them as slow-release fertilizers, effectively closing the loop between waste and agricultural need. Their work not only helps restore water quality and protect aquatic ecosystems but also addresses the looming threat of global phosphorus shortages by returning reclaimed phosphorus to the food production cycle.
Founded by a seven-person team of University of New Hampshire graduates, including Derek Long and Daisy Burns, HydroPhos Solutions has focused on a circular economy approach. With two graduations from accelerator programs – SeaAhead’s BlueSwell Program and Techstars – the team is redefining how we manage finite nutrients for a more resilient future.
We were thrilled to catch up with two co-founders from the startup, Long and Burns, two and a half months after the BlueSwell Program concluded.
Derek Long delivers the pitch to an audience of investors and other stakeholders for Demo Day on March 6th, 2025. Photo credit to Johnathan Clancy at Blue Wave Imagery.
What is the problem that you are addressing?
Long: We are tackling both phosphorus depletion and the pollution of our waterways. Phosphorus is a non-renewable resource that we need for farming. There’s no replacement. Thus, recapturing discarded phosphorus is important for making sure we have food on our table. When phosphorus gets into our waterways and causes algal blooms it destroys ecosystems. It’s detrimental to the ecosystem and everyone living near it.
What’s the story behind HydroPhos? How was it founded? I know there's a lot of founders from your team. Tell us the full story.
Burns: We came together in college to enter a social venture innovation challenge. Our co-founder, Jason, was in an ecology class where they were learning about Eutrophication, which describes the algal bloom issue that Derek just spoke about. We were looking at how we could remove the nutrients from the water to prevent this from happening. With more research, we realized that the nutrients that we were trying to take out were actually very valuable resources and that there's probably an application for them once reclaimed. Since then, we’ve been refining our approach to remediation by asking ourselves “how do we extract these nutrients from places where they shouldn't be to places where we need them?”
Did you all know each other before starting this team together or did you form the whole team in class?
Burns: We all were all friends since freshman year and sophomore year Jason brought the team together to enter a social venture innovation challenge.
Long: I was Jason's roommate, and I remember him turning to me and asking, “do you want to enter this competition?” I replied, “Sure. It's Covid. What else are we going to do?”
How did BlueSwell help you along your journey?
Burns: BlueSwell was so valuable for the network and the connections in bluetech. We met fellow founders who were facing similar industry and sector challenges. Any time there was something that we needed in terms of connections or resources, BlueSwell was quick to facilitate. The biggest thing I personally took away were connections to researchers, investors, and founders in the blue economy.
Daisy Burns delivers the HydroPhos pitch during the “Ocean Startups in the Ocean State” event during the BlueSwell Program’s trip to Providence, Rhode Island in early November 2024. Photo credit to Johnathan Clancy at Blue Wave Imagery.
Thanks for sharing that. We’re also interested in challenges you had to navigate at any point in your founder journey.
Long: One of our recent challenges is educating consumers about our biochar-based technology. While biochar is an ancient technology, we’re using it in innovative ways with new applications. It’s an exciting time to work with this resurging technology.
Do you have any stories about consumers and end users who were resistant, or asked, “why would I need this?” and then eventually came around after you explained the science behind it?
Long: It happens a lot with consumers in smaller operations. They send all their waste down the drain and don't know what's in it. A lot of what we're doing is probing them and pushing them to understand what’s in their wastewater.
As for researchers, they know about the issues of dumping a lot of phosphorus down the drain.
For people in agriculture you can’t advertise it as a fertilizer. Biochar is not a ‘straight’ fertilizer. That means you can’t just throw it on the ground and use it. It has a lower application rate over a larger period, and stores carbon in the ground. It's for long-term soil health and soil structure. When farmers hear fertilizer, they’re going to assume a different meaning, and you must address that discrepancy.
Am I missing one Daisy?
Burns: Not on that side of things, but it also happens regularly when we're pitching. When we talk about phosphorus, people say, “okay, I learned a little bit about that in high school chemistry… Why would I care about that now? I don't know anything about that.” We then discuss the fact that phosphorus is in our DNA, our plant's DNA, and that life does not exist without phosphorus. Part of it is educating people on how important phosphorus is and then they naturally understand why we're focused on this.
Nice job helping others recontextualize it! Thanks for sharing. We’re also curious about your focus area for the next few years and whether you’re raising a round.
Long: The long-term vision is to get our filter medium in municipal wastewater treatment plants. These systems are the largest point source emitters of phosphorus into our waterways. This will enable us to recover the maximum amount of phosphorus from the water. We are looking at smaller systems such as distilleries, food processing, and potentially even bioremediation to clean up lakes immediately. We’re starting with smaller markets and working our way up. From there, we’ll raise and scale appropriately to get up to these impactful, big market opportunities.
A closer look at the biochar-based filter material and prototype HydroPhos developed. Photo credit to Johnathan Clancy at Blue Wave Imagery.
What are some recent wins? You can share successes or what you've been up to and the momentum behind your work.
Burns: Our co-founder, Matt Oriente, defended his thesis just before this interview this morning! His thesis is on analyzing the desorption of our filtration media biochar. That is, when we put our enriched biochar on plant beds, how are the plants reacting and absorbing the nutrients that we have in the biochar? His research is critical in understanding the fertilizer aspect of the business.
Congratulations, Matt!
Burns: And it was a great presentation. He killed it! That was a very recent win. Besides that, we’ve been really honing in on the R&D. This includes testing with several sources of wastewater to maximize phosphorus uptake across a variety of conditions. Simultaneously, we've been doing a lot of customer discovery which dictates what we focus on for R&D.
Finally: our favorite question. What advice would you give to your past self before you embarked on the founder journey?
Burns: The biggest thing that I've learned as a founder has been incorporating adaptability and problem solving in everything I do. Every day of this job requires some element of those things. I would let my past self know that ups and downs are part of the process – one of the best and most exciting parts of the process actually.
Long: I would say really get out and do it. Every time you try something new, you're probably going to mess it up the first time. Make sure the first time you do something that it’s okay if things go wrong – because it will – and then you'll do it again. Next time, it will be pretty good. The attempts really do build and stack on top of each other. Get out there. Try, make something, create.
What is that famous saying? Fall down seven times, stand up eight.
Long: Exactly.
CONTACT INFO:
To get in touch with Derek Long & Daisy Burns, contact them at derek@hydrophossolutions.com and daisy@hydrophossolutions.com, respectively.
To learn more about HydroPhos Solutions, visit https://www.hydrophossolutions.com/
ABOUT BLUESWELL:
BlueSwell takes a whole-ocean approach to advancing the blue economy. The program focuses on bridging gaps between innovators, ocean experts, industries, and the venture community. BlueSwell leverages SeaAhead’s bluetech domain expertise, network, and experience in building companies to support the creation and growth of startups with scalable solutions that enhance ocean health, enable ocean industries, and strengthen global resilience.
To learn more about BlueSwell, click here.