Orono firm brings innovation to biofuels market
A four-year-old Orono technology company has won a nearly $500,000 boost from a federal grant program to help bring its innovative filtration technology to the commercial market. It's a technology that company President Susan MacKay says could revolutionize the nation's biofuels industry.
Last month, Zeomatrix received a $489,645 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation for its Z-SEP product, a ceramic filtration device for processing and separating fuel from biomass. The SBIR grant program helps cutting-edge R&D companies bring their products to market. The two-year award is the second round of funding Zeomatrix has received from the foundation, building off $120,000 the company already won for a feasibility study on the technology.
But it's just the beginning. MacKay says Zeomatrix, a University of Maine spinoff that's located in the school's Target Technology Center, hopes to double that award amount by attracting outside investment.
If the product is successful, it could capture a vital sector of a growing industry. In February, President Obama announced an initiative to boost the country's biofuels production, with a long-term goal of producing 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, 21 billion gallons of which would be advanced biofuels. Last year, the country produced 11.1 billion gallons, according to RenewableEnergyWorld.com, and meeting the goal means establishing 200 new biorefineries in the country.
Impeding that growth, however, is the high cost of processing biofuels; producing ethanol, for example, costs just as much as it can be sold for. "It's a problem that's not being solved," MacKay says. The Z-SEP product uses less energy and is more efficient than other methods, MacKay says, which could give it a prime market position. "We're using third generation biomass that won't otherwise be utilized and won't impact other uses, wood that doesn't go into paper."
MacKay is currently in talks with a large engineering firm that designs and constructs biorefineries, which would act as a consultant to help the company develop a commercial-scale product for use at major biorefineries processing jet and other fuels. A pilot test is more than two years away, but the company is hoping to test on a smaller scale sometime this year.
Though the product has obvious uses in biofuels, it could be tapped for other uses, like water filtration and gas purification. "We've probably just scratched the tip of the iceberg with its uses," MacKay says.
Zeomatrix was founded in 2006 by MacKay, Donald MacKay and Karl Bishop. Susan MacKay, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry and worked for 3M, worked with Bishop for a year in the University of Maine's chemistry department before branching off to bring another innovation to market. That product is Zeo-BLOC, another filtration product already in commercialization that siphons odors and gases out of decomposing waste and compost. A chemical additive, Zeo-BLOC is added to large reams of paper, which are then rolled out on top of a landfill or large composting operation.
Zeo-BLOC has been used at four different commercial landfill sites in New Hampshire, Maryland and Virginia, and proved to be more efficient than even MacKay predicted: A postcard-size piece of additive-laced paper can absorb the odors of a 300-square-foot area.
The company has contracted Savage Safe Handling in Auburn to process and manufacture Zeo-BLOC, and after marketing the product itself for about eight months, Zeomatrix recently signed on a distributor, New Waste Concepts, to take over. New Waste Concepts debuted the product to the national market at The WasteExpo 2010, held this week in Atlanta, Ga.
MacKay says no one else in the market is making a product like it, at least "not in the same way. It's so unique that you have to show people how it works. It's hard to sell using word of mouth."
The company has raised $800,000 total so far in grants and equity for both products and wants to double that. MacKay says the company has found a lot of support in Maine, including funding from the Maine Technology Institute and FAME's seed capital tax credit. The company also participated in the Maine Center for Enterprise Development's Top Gun program and Eaton Peabody's Innovative Enterprise Program. MCED also named MacKay winner of this year's 2010 Women in Technological Entrepreneurship award, which comes with a $400 prize. "We've probably utilized every little program we could find," MacKay says.
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments