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EPA Supporting Small Businesses by Advancing Sustainable and Innovative Products and Research/Twenty-one businesses receiving funding to strengthen the economy and the environment

Release Date: 07/14/2014
Contact Information: Cathy Milbourn milbourn.cathy@epa.gov 202-564-7849 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON: – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that 21 small businesses in 14 states are receiving funding from the EPA to develop and commercialize innovative, sustainable technologies to address current environmental issues . The agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is providing $2 million in funds to advance these innovative products and research.

“A strong economy and a healthy environment go hand-in-hand. With this funding we are providing opportunities for small companies to ultimately take their ideas and technology from the laboratory into the market place,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “Their contributions strengthen the economy while fostering public health and environmental protection.”

Each year, EPA provides a solicitation and funding opportunity for small businesses in a competitive two phase process. In Phase I, small businesses can receive up to $100,000 for ”proof of concept” of their technology, and successful Phase I companies can apply to develop and commercialize their technology with Phase II funding totaling up to $300,000. The small businesses announced today are part of Phase I of the SBIR program.

Many of the SBIR recipient companies go on to leverage EPA’s funding to bring their designs to reality, expand business, and create products that help protect human health and the environment. Companies that previously won SBIR contracts include Faraday Technology Inc., which developed a non-carcinogenic chrome plating process, and Cambrian Innovation, which created the EcoVolt system that treats wastewater and generates energy in the process.

Faraday Technology, currently planning to open a new alpha-scale facility in Clayton, Ohio, is using EPA’s funding to commercialize its technology as it partners with Boeing and attempts to replace millions of pounds of hexavalent chromium, a cancer causing chemical, that are in use in heavy duty machinery. Cambrian Innovation’s EcoVolt system is being tested and used by several wineries and breweries including Lagunitas, enabling them to produce methane to power and heat their operations while treating wastewater on site.

Among the 21 companies awarded this year, three companies, SimpleWater, LLC, Lucid Design Group, Inc., and Environmental Fuel Research, LLC, previously received EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) award. The P3 program is an annual student design competition that affords undergraduate and graduate student teams the opportunity to research and design innovative, sustainable methods and products that solve complex environmental problems. This additional SBIR funding allows these former P3 student teams to continue developing and commercializing their sustainable technologies.

This year’s recipients of EPA’s Phase I SBIR contracts are:

Arizona

· HJ3 Composite Technologies, LLC, Tucson, Ariz., for Green Materials for Doubling the Life of Drinking Water Pipeline

California

· SimpleWater, LLC, Berkeley, Calif., for ECAR-Electrochemical Arsenic Remediation for Affordable Water Security in America
· Lucid Design Group, Inc., Oakland, Calif., for Software Framework for Enabling Innovation in Behavior-based Energy Conservation in Commercial Buildings
· Biopico Systems, Inc., Irvine, Calif., for Environmental Sensing System Enhanced with Nested Concentrating Electrodes (ESSENCE) for Safe and Sustainable Water Resources
· CLEW, Pasadena, Calif., for Development of a Cost Effective Nutrient Removal Onsite Household Wastewater Treatment System for Environmentally Fragile Areas
• AquaNano LLC, Monrovia, Calif., for Next Generation of High Capacity Perchlorate Selective Resins for Drinking Groundwater Treatment

Connecticut

· Precision Combustion, Inc., New Haven, Conn., for Low-Cost, Regenerable Air Filter for Efficient Gaseous Pollutants Removal

Massachusetts

· EnChem Engineering, Inc., Newton, Mass., for Enhanced Decontamination of Wetted Pipe Material
· Aspen Products Group Inc., Marlborough, Mass., for High Flux Nanofiltration Membrane for Emerging Contaminant Control
· Reactive Innovations LLC, Westford, Mass., for Micro-Channel Electrochemical Production of Dimethy Carbonate

Maryland

· N5 Sensors, Inc., Rockville, Md., for Low-power, Small Form-Factor Benzene Sensor for Mobile Devices Based Exposure Monitoring

Minnesota

· United Science, LLC, Center City, Minn., for Field Deployable PFCs Sensors for Contaminated Soil Screening

Montana

· Sustainable Bioproducts, LLC, Bozeman, Mont., for Direct Conversion of Municipal and Agricultural Wastes to Biodiesel and Ethanol Utilizing a Unique Extremophilic Fungus

New Hampshire

· UltraCell Insulation, LLC, Manchester, N.H., for Ultracell-Advanced Cellulose Insulation

New Jersey

· NEI Corporation, Somerset, N.J., for Lithium-ion Batteries Based on Aqueous Electrolyte: A New Generation of Sustainable Energy Storage Devices

New Mexico

· Vista Photonics, Inc., Santa Fe, N.M., for Inexpensive High Performance Continuous Ammonia Monitor

Ohio

· MetaMateria Technologies LLC, Columbus, Ohio, for Phosphorus Removal and Recovery from Municipal Wastewater using Nano-Enhanced Media
· MesoCoat, Inc., Euclid, Ohio, for Development of Zinc Coatings on Steel by Cermaclad to Replace Galvanizing Picking Lines

Pennsylvania

· Environmental Fuel Research, LLC, Philadelphia, Pa., for Biofuel Production from Grease Trap Waste

Virginia

· ETSVP-JV, LLC, Roanoke, Va., for Innovative Filters Using Nanomaterial for Removal of Gaseous Pollutants and Particles for Contaminated Air Streams

Washington

· Grow Plastics, LLC, Seattle, Wash., for Process Development for Sandwich Core Structure PLA Thermoformed Objects

The solicitation for the next round of SBIR Phase I awards will open this month.

More information about the EPA SBIR Phase I awards: https://www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir/14awards
More information about EPA’s SBIR Program: www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir
More information about the SBIR Program across the Federal Government: www.SBIR.gov
More information about the EPA’s P3 Program: www.epa.gov/ncer/p3