The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded seven contracts totaling more than $2 million to small businesses across the nation for new technology development.
Companies won the contracts through the highly competitive annual Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program competition, which encourages small businesses to explore and develop environmental technologies from concept to commercialization.
The winning companies submitted their innovative ideas during the first phase of the SBIR competition in 2011, and received SBIR Phase I contracts of up to $80,000 to develop their concepts into technologies addressing key environmental areas. Winning the SBIR Phase I competition made these companies eligible to apply to the program’s Phase II competition this year. As Phase II recipients, the companies have received around $300,000 to further develop their technologies for the market place.
SBIR Phase II Awardees include:
OPTRA, Inc., Massachusetts, for a technology capable of trace level air quality, process monitoring, and chemical and biological threat detection
Lynntech, Inc., Texas, for developing automated, field deployable environmental monitors that promote clean up strategies for restoring contaminated sites to productive use
FBS, Inc., Pennsylvania for technology addressing detection of defects in water pipelines using ultrasonic guided waves
TDA Research, Inc., Colorado, for technology using waste gas from anaerobic digesters on farms to generate energy while preventing groundwater contamination and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions
Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Illinois, for technology treating new types of contaminants in drinking water
Adherent Technologies, Inc., New Mexico, for a pollution control technology reducing particulate pollution emitted by outdoor wood-fired boilers by more than 50 percent
Faraday Technology, Inc., Ohio, for a drop-in green chrome plating process that replaces conventional carcinogenic plating technology
To be eligible to participate in EPA’s SBIR program, a company must be an organized, for-profit U.S. business and have fewer than 500 employees.
In the last ten years SBIR has funded over 200 of these small companies, helping them grow and extend their capabilities while meeting the EPA’s public health improvement goals.
