Developed as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet competition, the system is small enough to fit inside a shipping container. The system works by passing the waste through such intense heat and pressure that it reaches the Supercritical Water Oxidization phase, in which the water flows like a gas but still dissolves things like a liquid. In this state, the supercritical water will dissolve the suspended sewage and, when oxygen is added, burn off the sludge to produce a sterile mixture of water, carbon dioxide and salts. The heat produced by the process could be used as a power source or cycled back into the system.

The Duke University team has received a $1.18 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue developing the system.