Phoenix Science & Technology, Inc

Phoenix Science & Technology, Inc.

27 Industrial Avenue Chelmsford, MA 01824 978-367-0232

http://www.phoenixsandt.com/

Interviewee: Raymond Schaefer, Principal Investigator Time of phone interview: 2:00PM November 3, 2006

Technology: Innovative Ultraviolet Light Source for Disinfection of Drinking Water Technology Continuum Stage: Stage 4- Verification

Media: water treatment EPA program(s): SBIR

Sources of funding: Phoenix Science and Technology (PS&T), Inc., started out with EPA SBIR Phase I and II funding. Funding from the EPA SBIR program was $295k (NCER SBIR PS&T, 2006). As the technology developed they received funding from Advanced Technology Program (ATP), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) (PS&T SD Lamps, 2006). These funding opportunities came about when PS&T found other applications for their ultraviolet light technology.

They also have a hand shake agreement with Trojan, a water treatment company, to lend testing equipment and facilities, advice, etc. This agreement is directly related to the water treatment application of their lamp.

Regulation involvement: In January there were two new rulings issued. The first, and relevant one, is that ultraviolet (UV) treatment of drinking water is not only approved, it is recommended. This means that the market for UV technology is increasing, and will grow for the next ten years Raymond Schaefer estimates. PS&T technology uses pulse UV, which has not been proven effective yet. This means that while UV technology is recommended, pulse UV technology is not recommended because it is a new technology.

Environmental problem technology solves: Drinking water treatment is very important so that people do not get sick. Many organisms exist in untreated water that are harmful to people. Right now chlorine is frequently used to treat drinking water. EPA

recommends the use of UV light to treat drinking water. EPA feels that UV light has far fewer side effects than chlorine because nothing is added to the water. PS&T’s UV surface discharge (SD) lamps use much less electricity than mercury-based UV lamps that are used now. Since electricity is the main cost of operating these lamps PS&T’s SD lamps cost less to operate than currently used mercury-based UV lamps.

Environmental impact: PS&T’s UV SD lamps use less electricity; this means they are more likely to be used to treat water, because they will cost less to operate. For this reason their application will be wider and their benefit over chlorine treatment will be

realized. They will also save energy over mercury-based UV lamps because they use less electricity.

Summary: PS&T currently has two patents and a third one pending. They also have a license agreement with Kyzer Systems Inc. Foresight was not really helpful when it came to considering alternate paths to take the technology to, mainly because PS&T already researched alternative routes and applications for the technology. It would be appreciated if Foresight assisted with making the deals between the technology developers and companies that would use the technology, just like a broker does.

Challenges along the way (at what stage): PS&T needed to gain credibility for their technology. To do this they wanted to have their technology verified by a third party.

This verification would prove to companies interested in buying their technology that it actually met its claims. PS&T considered using Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program. This program is designed to verify new environmental technologies.

The one downside to using ETV to verify their technology was that EPA only funds about half of the total cost of verification for this expensive program.

Solutions to the challenges (resources used): PS&T has instead partnered up with colleges and universities, such as Duke University, to test in their facilities. Another cheaper way to receive verification that PS&T has used is to hire expert independent researchers.

Interviewee’s Suggestions to improve environmental technology commercialization:

Have an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quality (IDIQ) contract like Department of Defense (DOD). This allows a company an easier way to receive funding from other government agencies. Funding can be directly transferred from one government agency to another, making funding easier to secure.

Another thing EPA can do is shift around funding, or move money around to another agency, this may take away from the administrative work. This way EPA still supports the development and commercialization of environmental technologies, but the administrative costs are not felt by EPA. This is because another agency deals with the distribution paper work.

During this interview it was also recommended that EPA consider a funds

matching program, where EPA might match 50 cents on the dollar for commercialization funding received from outside companies. This would give companies developing technologies a boost with the commercialization process.

Another suggestion was that there be more support after Phase II funding. The SBIR program can act as a broker to bridge the gap between Phase II SBIR funding and Phase III non-government funding, i.e. venture capital.

EPA SBIR program should reconsider the amounts awarded and increase them to what they used to be worth, taking into consideration inflation, when EPA first

established their SBIR award amounts. Inflation has increased the cost of developing a new technology. Therefore the support for that development and commercialization should also increase.

Major conclusions: Overall EPA SBIR program was helpful in technology development.

As technology progresses along the continuum the price to move further along increases.

For this reason EPA funding was helpful in the beginning when research could be done on a small budget. As the technology progressed more funding was needed. This funding was received from a variety of sources mentioned earlier. EPA SBIR program helped get the technology started, but left off after it began Phase II. More support for verification and commercialization would help technologies reach the market.

Nugget of knowledge, interesting fact: EPA SBIR program application requires the most paper compared with other SBIR programs that PS&T has experience with. EPA could use Grants.gov for their SBIR application process. This would dramatically reduce the amount of required paper during EPA SBIR application process.

Analysis: Raymond Schaefer of PS&T commented that he had worked with multiple sources of SBIR funding to develop his SD technology. Therefore he had to go through multiple application processes and wait for acceptance to each program. One of his suggestions was to allow transfer of funds from one government agency to another, to be injected to the company through one agency’s program. This way, if a company was enrolled in an EPA program, but DOD and NIH liked the technology being developed, they could just give money to EPA, who could filter it down to the company without having to go through more application processes. Another suggestion for assisting the company to obtain funding was to use the idea of fund matching. This would mean that if a SBIR company could secure funds from an outside company, EPA would match 50 cents for every dollar given by the outside company to fund the project.

Since they are in the process of verifying their technology, which is leaving the realm of SBIR support, more information about some suggested ways to proceed would be useful. With a small amount of marketing experience and no federal program to turn to, being able to get your technology commercialized is extremely difficult. More financial support for verification would directly benefit this technology, because current funding options available through EPA only cover half the testing cost.

4.2.11 USInfrastructure

Interviewee: Ramjee Raghavan, Principle Investigator Time of phone interview: 11:30AM November 29, 2006

Technology: Upflow Filter for Rapid and Effective Treatment of Stormwater Technology Continuum Stage: Stage 6- Diffusion and Utilization

Media: water treatment

EPA program(s): SBIR and ETV

Sources of funding: This project by USInfrastructure, Inc.(USI) was funded by internal money along with EPA SBIR Phase I funding of $99,926, and Phase II funding of

$225,000 (NCER SBIR USI, 2006) (NCER SBIR USI II, 2006).

Regulation involvement: Storm water regulations have positively impacted this

technology. Business owners are being required to investigate the potential of having to treat the runoff from their sites before it enters the drainage system (NCER SBIR USI, 2006). Without these regulations the technology would not be as nearly successful as it is today.

Environmental problem technology solves: Storm water contains a wide variety of contaminants that are harmful to the environment. These can include heavy metals, such as mercury. Storm water is collected in storm drains that can empty directly into our natural water system untreated. If the storm water enters into ponds or streams untreated, the storm water brings with it all the contaminants.

Environmental impact: Using filters to treat storm water before it enters our natural water supply would help to mitigate this problem. The contaminants would be filtered out of the storm water and would not reach our water supply. This would in turn keep our water clean and safe to drink.

Summary: One of the researchers working with USI is an expert in this field and had many contacts in industry. USI attended conferences where some companies were interested. Hydro Compliance was one of these companies that were interested and also a contact. They bought the technology/ patent from USI. Hydro Compliance then came to a selling agreement with Hydro International, an international company trying to grow in the United States. Hydro International gave USI $100K for commercialization

funding, which allowed USI to go through the ETV program. The results for ETV are not officially out as of the interview date, 11-29-06; even though USI began the verification process two years prior. Development was successful. While waiting for