The founding story behind Oxyle

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Oxyle was founded in 2020 with a mission to eliminate Forever Chemicals from our water. Learned what inspired Dr. Fajer Mushtaq and Dr. Silvan Staufert to found it.

Dr. Fajer Mushtaq, CEO and Co-Founder of Oxyle

Get to know Dr. Fajer Mushtaq, CEO & Co-Founder

 

Growing up in Delhi, every time Fajer turned the faucet, she faced a familiar anxiety: Was the water clean? Would there be enough? From a young age, she vowed to make water her life’s mission.  

During her Masters at ETH Zurich, she saw the other side of the water crisis. In Switzerland, clean water seemed to flow endlessly from the taps, yet micropollutants were silently contaminating water supplies. The problem wasn’t just the pollution, it was also how we handled it. 

In the lab, she saw firsthand how toxic wastewater wasn’t treated—it was incinerated. An expensive process that only sent pollutants right back into the environment. 

Determined to change this, she focused her doctoral research over 5 years on developing a nanocatalyst that could break down and mineralize micropollutants using just vibrations in water—no toxic waste, no secondary pollution, no high-energy costs.  

She knew, to make a real difference, she needed to graduate this idea out of the lab and into the real world. With the support of her co-founder Silvan, they launched Oxyle in 2020 to eliminate Forever Chemicals – down to the last drop.  

 

Dr Silvan Staufert

Get to know Dr. Silvan Staufert, CTO & Co-founder

 

Silvan has always been drawn to solving big, complex challenges. That drive led him to ETH Zurich, where he earned a Master’s in Mechanical and Process Engineering and a PhD in Micro- and Nanotechnology, specializing in advanced materials and sensors. 

He started his career in R&D at IST AG working on novel sensors systems. Though one question kept pulling him back—where could his engineering expertise make the biggest impact? Water, the world’s most vital resource, was an industry fundamentally lacking innovation. It was an opportunity too important to ignore. 

During his PhD, he met Fajer Mushtaq, and they recognized a critical gap—water treatment alone wasn’t enough. Without real-time monitoring, there was no way to know what was being discharged or if treatment was actually working. 

In 2020, he co-founded Oxyle, combining Fajer’s advanced catalyst with his novel sensor system to eliminate Forever Chemicals—and prove that it works in real time. 

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Dr. Silvan Staufert & Dr. Fajer Mushtaq

Growing up in Delhi, every time Fajer turned the faucet, she faced a familiar anxiety: Was it clean? Would there be enough? From a young age, she vowed to make water her life’s mission.

While pursuing a doctorate at ETH Zurich, Fajer met Silvan, another idealist who understood that when it comes to water treatment, innovations can’t come soon enough and he knew that his broad engineering skills would find a great use in this mission.

Together, they saw their chance to make a real impact by addressing one of humanity’s greatest challenges: Forever Chemicals.

Realizing the lack of effective solutions, they created a technology that could degrade and mineralize Forever Chemicals in minutes. They knew this innovation could change the world, but only if it graduated out of the lab and into the real world.

In 2020, Oxyle was born with a singular mission: to restore and protect our waters from Forever Chemicals, down to the very last drop.