Aquafortus Team — Aquafortus

Leadership Team

JAMES NEWMAN, PE

Professional Engineer (Texas) with over 35 years of experience in multiple facets of the oil & gas service industry including water management, well operations and interventions, and regulatory compliance.
Initial experience focused in Permian Basin, with last fifteen years in multiple basins across the U.S. including the DJ, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Marcellus, and San Joaquin, as well as the San Joaquin Valley of California, as well as the Middle East.
Active in Society of Petroleum Engineers, Permian & Fort Worth Chapters, and most recently served on SPE U.S. Advisory Council.
Texas Tech Petroleum Industry Advisory Board, Academy of Petroleum Engineering, Southwestern Petroleum Short Course Board. Permian Basin Petroleum Association board member. Served on Colorado Oil & Gas Association board. BSc in Petroleum Engineering, Colorado School of Mines.
Currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of Aquafortus, Inc. the parent company of Aquafortus Technologies, Ltd.

IRINA ZHABKO

Chartered Accountant, CAANZ. BBus (Accounting) AUT, Auckland, New Zealand.
Oversees and leads the company’s finance function.

RICHARD BRUNTON

Richard brings 15 years of experience in industrial and academic chemistry research to Aquafortus, including a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Alberta, Canada.
Richard has been working at the interface of chemistry and engineering at Aquafortus since 2021, taking over leadership of the process chemistry team in 2023 until his appointment as CTO in 2024.
During his time at Aquafortus, he has been instrumental in testing and validating a wide range of technologies that have served to reduce capital and operational costs of the process.
Oversees the optimization and implementation of the current ABX process as well as the development of new Aquafortus technology and applications.

RITABAN BANERJEE

MEng, Electrical & Electronics Engineering.
Over 10 years of experience in commercial roles, assisting startups.
Assisting Aquafortus with its product strategy and market intelligence.
Masters of Applied Finance. Victoria University of Wellington.

MATT KILKER

Experienced, technical leader with 15+ year experience in various technical and commercial roles in water and oil & gas service industry.
Matt began his career as a product engineer with GE, specializing in design and support of GE’s HPump System, taking on numerous management, commercial, and technical roles over his eight years with GE. He joined NGL Energy Partners as VP Engineering in 2019 establishing engineering, data management and support in water infrastrucure. He joined Basic Energy Services in 2020, leading Water Logistics and soon thereafter managing Basic’s wholly owned subsidiary Agua Libre Midstream. Upon transitioning that business to Select Water Solutions in 2021, Matt grew Select’s water infrastructure across numerous states, exiting as Business Unit President in March 2024, and joining Aquafortus Inc. as Chief Operating Officer.
Matt is an active volunteer in FFA, mentor, and father of three, and holds a BSc in BioMechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University.

Dr MATTHEW CALVERT

Matthew received his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry in 2015 from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, followed by six years as a postdoctoral research fellow inat the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research (Germany), the University of British Colombia (Canada), and the University of Auckland.
Matthew joined Aquafortus in 2021 as an R&D Chemist, investigating new chemicals for the Aquafortus process and carrying out research to understand the underlying physicochemical phenomena involved in water transfer in multiphasic systems. Matthew has been a team leader for the chemistry team since 2022 and currently oversees the process and research divisions.

ANDREW WALLER

Andrew is a professional chemical engineer with over 33 years’ experience in process improvement in various large-scale industries. He has completed projects in process design, process installation, process commissioning and process optimization across multiple industries.
Andrew joined Aquafortus in 2022 as a chemical process engineer, working on using the lab data from the chemistry and engineering R&D teams to design a scaled up pilot plant.

DR SIMON ZHANG

Dr. Simon Zhang, Engineering R&D Team Leader
Simon is a Senior Chemical Process Engineer who earned his PhD in Engineering in 2017 and possesses over seven years of experience in water treatment processes.
Since joining Aquafortus in 2021, Simon has been instrumental in the development of ultra-high pressure nanofiltration and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technologies. As of 2023, he has taken on a leadership role within the Engineering Research Team, where his expertise in process design, optimization, and sustainable engineering solutions has significantly advanced chemical separation and water treatment methodologies.
Throughout his career, Simon has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to pushing the boundaries of innovation while enhancing both efficiency and sustainability within the field of water treatment processes.

SAMRITH KIM

Test system equipment integration and development, project management.
Lead electrical automation project for plant setup and commissioning.

DR RHYS CARTER

Rhys has over 12 years of experience in water chemistry, including a PhD thesis focused on water quality from Curtin University, Australia, and four years of analytical experience at a commercial water testing laboratory.
Rhys joined Aquafortus in 2023 and his strong research and analytical background saw him quickly promoted to analytical team leader later that year. Rhys is actively involved with method development on a wide range of analytical instruments, ensuring rapid turnaround time for research samples and accurate results across a range of challenging sample matrices.

MICHAEL GROSSMAN

Michael is a Chemical Engineer with 10+ years’ experience commercializing novel water treatment technologies, including adsorbents, membranes, and evaporation systems. Michael has experience working with various municipal and industrial wastewaters, with specific emphasis on oil & gas wastewater.
He is the lead author of two patents and numerous technical papers and presentations. He is currently serving as the Technical Committee Chair for the Produced Water Society.

JASON HULL

Jason began his career in oilfield water in 2009, joining Basic Energy Services Fluids group as an SWD technician. He gained experience and training in water management and treatment operations through management and construction of numerous surface facilities, leading new facility construction for Basic. He joined Select Water Solutions in 2020, as a part of their subsidiary Agua Libre Midstream. Jason joined Aquafortus, Inc. as the Pilot Plant Operations Manager, and is based in Big Spring, Texas.
He is the lead author of two patents and numerous technical papers and presentations. He is currently serving as the Technical Committee Chair for the Produced Water Society.

Advisory Board

STEVE GLUCK

Highly respected and renowned expert in the water industry, worked for Dow Chemical for over 30 years.
Supporting Aquafortus with its R&D and scale-up activities.

BOB HULTZ

40+ year career as an Executive in the Water Treatment and Oil & Gas industries across the globe.
Led global and regional technical sales in China, Middle East, Africa and the USA.
Supporting Aquafortus develop its commercial strategy.

BERNIE MACK

Water Industry Commissioning Engineer - initially in municipal waste water and involved in the construction of large power plant boiler feed water and condensate polishing systems.
46-year career in international water industry, Ionics, GE and Veolia Water, Middle East, South Africa and both North and South America specializing in membrane applications including Electrodialysis (ED/EDR), Electro deionization (EDI), Ultrafiltration (UF) and pressure driven membrane including Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration.
Supporting Aquafortus in membrane process development for Regenerant Recovery.

RON LENG

Highly respected and renowned expert in chemical process engineering, developer of the bonsai method.
Worked for Dow Chemical as a Research Fellow for over 39 years where he held several roles in R&D and Manufacturing. He has extensive experience in scaling both batch and continuous technology from the bench to commercial scale. His expertise includes reaction kinetics, crystallization, filtration, extraction, distillation, and drying as well as supply chain development and technoeconomic evaluation. Ron holds several patents, has authored a number of publications, and is a long-standing member of AIChE.
Assisting Aquafortus’ engineering group in process development and optimization.