Thank you very much for joining me today. My name is Rick MacPherson, Richard MacPherson. I'm the CEO of Birchtech. We're here to talk to you about our company today. Our company, as you can see on the first slide here, is a clean coal and clean water technologies company for more affordable contaminant removal. We'll go through the forward-looking statements. This will be provided for your full review, of course. Moving on into the presentation itself, I'd like to give you an overview of Birchtech. Birchtech develops activated carbon technologies and provides consulting services to companies that are in the coal-fired plant. It also covers the ability for us to be able to generate new technologies for the water systems around the country.
Our clean air technologies, and perhaps I'll move back to reference the slide here, are established and are our core business, supporting over 40% of the U.S. coal-fired fleet since 2011 that uses sorbent-based approach to capturing mercury. We have this patented system that has been in place and generated over $268 million worth of commercial business to date. Of late, we've moved into clean water technologies, and we're very pleased with their development in that area and having moved into that, specifying in our ability to be able to reduce PFOA and PFOS contaminants from the drinking systems across the country. We also have, at this point, what's established a very strong IP portfolio and successful in enforcing that IP. We have 35 total patents, and we've successfully secured over $35 million in settlements with utilities that are using our technologies and continue to do so.
Also, most recently, a little over a year ago, we were successful in the prosecution of a trial in Delaware that resulted in a $57 million award from the jury. That is out for final review by the judge at this time. We do expect a final judgment to come down on that case in the coming weeks. We have asked the court for just about $160 million as a final award due to the willfulness of the infringement and the subsequent costs that went along with prosecuting it since it was filed in 2019. We very much expect that that will come down in the very near future. As you can see, to the side of the screen, we have the different economics of the company as it sits today. Moving on to the opportunities within the company, there are basically three growth opportunities in the company.
One is our ongoing supply business, which we have projected to be at least $18 million this year. That will continue to grow as we expect closing other settlements with folks that are using our technologies today. Second to that is the expected amount of value to come from the IP prosecutions that we are involved in. That has the potential, as I mentioned, to be upwards of $160 million. Now, when we look at the clean water side of our business, which we've invested significantly over these past three years, we see a tremendous opportunity for us to develop our long-term value as a company in that area. Although the air business is solid and growing, and we expect it to continue to do so, the water business that we've entered has a significant upside to it.
With the new regulations in place, it looks to be a multi-billion dollar opportunity for the industry in the coming years annually. A number of different states have already taken on the responsibility to remove PFOA and PFOS, and the federal regulations are due to kick in at the end of this decade. We see a very big upswing in the use of, in particular, granular activated carbon, which is the area that we have focused on. We have a great deal of skill set in that field of carbonaceous materials. Looking at the legacy business and the market expansion that's underway, that reoccurring core business has generated the $265 million I referred to. The revenue ramp-up has the potential to generate up to $40 million by the end of 2026. We have not given guidance to that.
That will depend on how the settlements with the present defendants in our case go and people that are using our technology in general. $18 million, as I mentioned, is the estimated 2025 revenue rate that we expect. We expect to be adding water revenues to that in that field as we go forward. The water treatment business as such, as I mentioned, is a very fast-growing industry at this time. We very much are expecting to take a big role in that as it develops over the next few years.
We have two new world-class lab centers that we've developed, one in North Dakota and another in Pennsylvania, that do both high-end multiple analytical work, as well as the design center actually being put together in a way that it can create new custom-designed GAC materials and also carry out reactivation activities so that we'll be able to offer utilities a very sound and complete way for them to evaluate their capacity to meet the new EPA regulations as they come into effect. For those states that wish to move forward sooner, we can provide all of those utilities the means and know-how to be able to find the very best way for them to meet the removal requirements for PFOA and PFOS. That's a process that's underway now at our facilities.
We have a dozen new engineers and technicians actively at work daily, working on this process as we go forward. We'll be bringing more material news about those results as we move through the fall. Talking about the technologies for water purification, the problem, of course, is the forever chemicals, the PFOS and PFOA. Our experience is that GAC, granular activated carbon, is the best way to meet that challenge. Our ability to be able to manipulate granular activated carbon and produce a customized version, which is what we did in the air side, is well underway. We will bring more news to market on that in the coming months.
What we've been able to do is create, through our expertise, a reactivation facility at our design center in order to reactivate spent carbons and show the utilities that are using them how the efficacy has been returned to the carbons and what the long-term sales advantage will be of using reactivation versus purchasing virgin carbon time and time again to meet the new regulations. We have a robust infrastructure. We have a facility in Grand Forks, another one in Pennsylvania. We have a facility in Corsicana. We have one in Texarkana. Our development efforts are now moving forward for other facilities. All of these facilities are paid for. The company operates with zero debt at this point.
If you look at PFOA and PFOS and the contaminant locations of them across the country, you can see that the eastern half of the country is heavily focused on what we would call PFOA/PFOS hotspots. We'll be addressing, initially, the testing and development requirements for the utilities that are involved in these areas. Secondly, we'll be developing and building out facilities necessary to treat their activated carbons and remove those toxins from the spent carbons that they're using. That's generally what I would have to say today. Basically, what we have is a three-part approach to growing our company, which we very much expect to uplist onto the New York Stock Exchange this fall. All of the steps are being taken at this time to see that happen. We have a core company that's very strong and growing in the supply side of our air business.
We have some significant successful claims on the IP side of that company, which we'll be bringing forth final judgments and possible significant amounts of cash in the coming months. Last, but probably most important, is our strength and capacity to move into the water market. We very much expect that we'll become a very significant player in the water market with new facilities now in the planning stages that we would be bringing to market sometime by the end of 2026. With that, I'd like to open for any questions anybody might have. Thank you very much for attending. Yes.
In terms of the cadence of, let's say, like licensing deals, kind of going forward with all the guys you have in the litigation queue, how do you envision that shaking out through?
We announced a settlement with one of the infringing parties last month. We actually just announced another one yesterday. We are in discussions with a number more. Our anticipation, given the results so far, is that we will continue to settle away with these facilities. The big upside for us with this is not just the actual license deal itself and any payment that might come with that, but the ability to be able to supply the material over time. Typically, in three to five-year supply contracts, that will go a long way to building that core base of supply business from $18 million to $20 million beyond. As I mentioned earlier, those facilities have the capacity to take us up to about a $40 million run rate. There is no guidance there in terms of when and if we are going to get there.
That is the supply side opportunity, which the door is open on, of course, once we settle with them moving forward.
I guess one follow-up. I saw with this morning's PR, does it show, for example, what the go-forward revenue is for if we get a new licensing customer in terms of supply revenue? Conceptually, without the numbers that I used to put in a customer, what does that look like in terms of as it stacks, as we kind of continue these PRs come in? A year from now, if we have a couple more of these visibly, what does that revenue on the air side look like as you stack?
Sure. Again, without making a full commitment, our average on these is about a $2 million to $3 million annual supply contract. The actual license amounts go anywhere from a quarter million to several million dollars. It depends on the size of the operations and the amount of time of infringement and things of that nature, but also what the go-forward operations are. With the change in the regulations under the Trump administration, there's a very robust forward path for coal-fired plants, given the AI demand. We very much expect that that side of the business will continue to grow nicely. As we add the water business back in, we expect that that will surpass the air side probably in 2027 significantly. We'll start announcing commercial deals in the water side this year.
Yeah, no, that's all my questions.
Yeah, just one last little follow-up on that part. How many you've settled, I guess, with a couple of these? What's the, how big is the funnel? Are there 10? Are there 20?
Sure. We've settled with 12 so far, and there are another 10 that are in discussions at this point.
Changing gears to the water business, are your facilities, are you manufacturing sample or pilot-size quantities now? In terms of your go-to-market there, are you, is that direct sales where you're hiring people? How difficult is it going to be? Put a lot of dots on that map up there. You know, it's easy to put the dots and start to make the sale.
Sure.
Should we start thinking about that as we go forward in the year?
Good question. We backed up, oh, three years ago and decided that rather than get into the market, start competing with the big players in the market selling GAC, that we would stay with our strengths, which is research and development. We developed new GACs, custom GACs that have a number of different attributes that we'll be bringing to market in the coming weeks, as well as we perfected the ability at the research level to analyze what a utility is doing today, what they're going to have to do to meet the new PFOA/PFOS regulations, and how best to get there. We're now offering services through our lab facilities, which I think will very quickly become profit centers that allow a utility to come to us, bring their spent GAC, bring their water, and bring samples of the new GACs that they use.
We'll run a cross-section of testing, which will get them to a point where they can see what's the best approach for them to take, including reactivation. We have a reactivation facility built at our Pennsylvania site. We have new GAC materials available and customizable based on the analytics that come out of North Dakota. If you bring us your water, that's your spent material, and your water for us to analyze, we will put together a special customized GAC for that facility. We'll also show and recommend how your present spent materials could be reactivated. What that'll generate for you is an option to remove all your PFOA/PFOS at about 50% of the cost of where you are now, which would be having to replace it with fresh new carbon every 6 to 12 months. We're doing for water what we've done for air in the past.
In the past, typically, a boiler would require about 500 pounds an hour of brominated activated carbon to meet its compliance. With our technologies, we were able to go in and cut that down to about 100 pounds an hour.
We are using that same skill set and that same know-how of carbonaceous materials with the new people we've added and the facilities that we've built to create a situation where you as a municipality with 200,000, 300,000 people and a water supply that has to meet these new regulations can come to us, either you or through your engineering firm, and we will take your entire system, analyze it, and bring you to the point where you have an option where instead of, as it sits now, having to pay four or five times as much to be able to meet the new regulations, you'll be able to meet it for a very similar cost to what you're paying now. That is by using our analytical abilities and creating an option that's not available to you today by the big players in the market.
We are going to be very disruptive as we were in the air and create an option for utilities to be able to meet regulations at a reasonable price.
Your gross margin is going to be on the supply management and labs that are operating, whatever. If you start supplying that market with your materials.
You know, the gross margins, as we've done our calculations so far, are going to be close to 50%, 40% to 50%. The best thing about this business for us is that, and for the utilities, is that it's a continual operation. You will not, as a utility, once you have your system in place and full of GAC, have to replace that material going forward. We will reactivate, provide custom top-up to it, and provide it to you for about 50% of the cost should you be in a situation where you had to go buy new activated carbon every six months because it was used up. That's the biggest challenge with these new regulations, what are you going to do if you have to change out your material every six months instead of presently, say, every two years? That's where the huge cost is going to come.
We're ramping up to be able to keep that from being the only option.
On the legal part, who's the judge?
It's Judge Burke from Delaware. Very articulate, very competent judge. We very much expect, as it seems he does with everything, he's taking his time to make sure everything is 100% correct. Whenever he comes down with his judgment, we'll accept it, of course, but I expect that it would be a very detailed, in-depth judgment, which, to our benefit, will be able to withstand any appeals.
The impetus behind that getting done is just his desire to clear it.
Correct. Correct. He's a federal judge. He does what he wants. Any other questions, gentlemen? Thank you very much. I appreciate you joining me today. Thank you, Wayne Wright, for having me. Cheers.