EPA Announces Support For Small Businesses To Bring Green Technology, Innovative Research To Marketplace

Small businesses in Calif., Del., Ga., Ill., La., Ohio, N.Y., and Tenn., to receive EPA funding

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy announced recently nine awards in eight states for small businesses to help them bring innovative green technologies to the marketplace. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy held a press call to announce the awards and reiterate the agency’s commitment to strengthening economic growth, supporting sustainable businesses, and combating the impacts of climate change.

“The small businesses receiving awards today are innovating affordable, energy efficient technologies that are strengthening our economy and building a low-carbon future while bringing a unique vision for addressing complex environmental issues like reducing harmful emissions to create a cleaner environment and enhancing recycling processes,” said EPA Administrator McCarthy. “When we invest in research and innovation, that return on investment builds a healthy economy and a healthy environment for all of us.”

Administrator McCarthy announced almost $3M in funding to nine small businesses through the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. She was joined on a press call by David Levine of the American Sustainable Business Council and two SBIR awardees, John Rich of Nashville-based National Recovery Technologies, LLC., a small business that produced a low cost technology to recycle electronics; and Carol Ann Wedding, president of Imaging Systems Technology, a small business that developed a highly efficient, versatile water purification system, based in Toledo, Ohio.

 EPA’s SBIR funding reinforces the agency’s commitment to supporting small businesses and protecting human health and the environment, bringing the total support for the over 30 year-long program to $140 million. Small businesses will use this funding to commercialize these solutions.

Since its creation, EPA’s SBIR Program has given 969 awards to small businesses that provide jobs for developing cutting-edge, green technologies. The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs are the largest source of early-stage capital for innovative small companies in the United States. Via these programs, the federal government invests over 2 billion dollars in American entrepreneurial firms to develop and commercialize technologies that strengthen our nation's defense, improve the health of its citizens, and enhance education.

The SBIR program provides funding in two phases. In the first phase, proposals are submitted by companies and, after undergoing a competitive selection process, they can receive up to $100,000 in funding for proof of concept. Successful Phase I companies that want to participate in Phase II must go through a second competitive process to receive up to $300,000 for two years.

The following companies received $2.7M in 2014 SBIR Phase II funding:

• California - HJ Science & Technology, Inc., a small business based in Berkeley, Calif., designed and built a field-deployable, portable instrument capable of performing onsite monitoring and detection of microcystin and other cyanotoxins to help combat potentially harmful algal blooms, including the algal bloom that prevented hundreds of thousands of Toledo residents from drinking local water from Lake Erie last summer.
• California - Instrumental Polymer Technologies, Inc., a small business based in Westlake Village, Calif. used a unique process to produce low-cost, no emission polymers from sustainable materials into water-based wood coatings, reducing the environmental impact of wood coatings.
• Delaware - Compact Membrane Systems, Inc., a small business based in Wilmington, Del. developed a novel membrane to enhance the use of green solvents to create chemical processing tools that are less volatile and have fewer emissions than conventional solvents.
• Georgia - ArunA Biomedical, Inc., a small business based in Athens, Ga., created a more faithful representation of human neural tissue to help identify chemicals that are hazardous to the brain.
• Illinois - EP Purification, Inc., a small business based in Champaign, Ill., developed and commercialized a system for using ozone to treat water that will be considerably smaller, more efficient, and more cost effective than existing technologies.
• Louisiana - Providence Photonics, a small business based in LLC, Baton Rouge, La., developed the Flare Efficiency Monitoring System and a calibration device to minimize toxic emissions from industrial facilities.
• New York - Ecovative Design, LLC, a small business based in Green Island, N.Y., created a cost-effective green alternative to foam packaging made of 100 percent bio-based and home compostable material from vegetative tissue of a fungus.
• Ohio - Imaging Systems Technology, Inc., a small business based in Toledo, Ohio, will continue development of a low cost, rugged, lightweight, and highly efficient and versatile water purification system.
• Tennessee - National Recovery Technologies, LLC., a small business based in Nashville, Tenn., developed of an e-waste recycling technology which will lower cost, increase efficiency, and provide a stream of rare earth elements for reuse in future applications.

More information on the SBIR Phase II awards: www.epa.gov/ncer/2014SBIRphase2awards

For more information about the SBIR Program: www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir/

To be notified by email when EPA’s research funding opportunities are available, sign up at: www.epa.gov/ncer/listserv/