WASHINGTON – Today, October 25, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $2.8 million in funding to seven small businesses to further develop and commercialize their environmental technologies. With these awards from EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, businesses will be tackling complex challenges including destroying PFAS, cleaning indoor air during wildfires, enhancing recycling systems, reducing food waste, and improving disaster response. 

“Congratulations to these small businesses for continuing to pursue innovative solutions to some of our most pressing environmental challenges,” said Maureen Gwinn, Acting Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “EPA is proud to invest in these small businesses as they work to help protect human health and the environment across many sectors and help grow the American economy.”

For over 40 years, EPA’s SBIR program has funded small businesses as they create environmental technologies and bring them to the marketplace. SBIR projects are funded in a phased approach. For Phase I, EPA awards contracts of up to $100,000 for six months for “proof of concept” of the proposed technology. Small businesses that have received a Phase I award can compete for a Phase II award of $400,000 to further develop and commercialize the technology. 

The following businesses are receiving about $400,000 each in SBIR Phase II awards for these projects:

• DiPole Materials, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, to design a biodegradable filter made of electro-spun nanofibers to clean indoor air during wildfires. 
• Fourth State LLC, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a plasma treatment technology to destroy PFAS in complex water matrices. 
• GreenLife Tech Corporation, Banner Elk, North Carolina, for an autonomous system that controls oxygen levels in refrigerators to preserve produce for a longer time.
• Holochip Corporation, Torrance, California, to build an artificial intelligence application to map sites to improve the safety and efficacy of disaster response. 
• KLAW Industries LLC, Binghamton, New York, to produce a rapidly deployable, autonomous robotic sorting system to improve recycling facilities in disadvantaged communities.
• Valis Insights, Inc., Worcester, Massachusetts, to develop an automated and AI-driven technology that helps optimize the sorting process for metals recycling. 
• Water Illumination, Inc., Riverside, California, to create a novel chemical-free UV based PFAS destruction technology for saline wastewater treatment. 

 Learn more about the winning projects.

Learn more about EPA’s SBIR program.

Learn more about SBIR