Icorium Engineering Company, a sustainable engineering startup and University of Kansas (KU) spinout, announced today that it has been awarded a one-year Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Icorium researchers will use the $275,000 award to develop proof-of-concept for the separation of commercial refrigerant mixtures using extractive distillation with ionic liquids. In partnership with KU’s Institute for Sustainable Engineering, Icorium engineers will model the complex separations and collaborate with KU researchers to perform pilot scale separations of refrigerant mixtures using KU’s one of a kind pilot-scale extractive distillation column.
In the US alone, billions of pounds of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants with global warming potential often thousands of times higher than CO2. HFCs are the replacement for older chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) refrigerants, which have been phased out over the past several decades due to their destructive effects on the ozone. Though HFC refrigerants have zero ozone depletion potential, many have extremely high global warming potential (GWP), with some as high as 10,000 times greater than CO2. Soon, HFCs will be phased out in favor of a new generation of Hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) refrigerants as part of recent EPA legislation, which restricts the use of some HFC refrigerants and calls for phasing-down their production by 85% by 2036. As with CFC and HCFCs before them, HFCs will be needed to operate existing systems for decades after production ceases, leading to a significant increase in demand for recycled refrigerant. To recycle recovered refrigerants, they must first be separated and purified to high standards. Because the mixtures form azeotropes, they are extremely difficult to separate, and no commercial technology is currently available to do so.
Icorium’s Co-Founder and KU chemical engineering PhD candidate KU, Kalin Baca, will lead the research effort, taking on the role of Icorium’s full-time CEO once she completes her degree. “I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship, and it’s incredibly exciting to have the opportunity to build a company from the ground-up while continuing to work on the technologies that have been the focus of my PhD research,” says Baca. “I am even more excited that I’ll get to keep working with my colleagues and mentors at KU on this project and hopefully many more to come.”
“This is a great opportunity for the company, the University of Kansas, and for Kalin,” says Icorium Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Dr. Mark Shiflett. “As academic scientists, this is the type of outcome we love to see. This is NSF lineage technology that was first investigated here at KU’s Institute for Sustainable Engineering through our Project EARTH initiative [Environmentally Applied Research Towards Hydrofluorocarbons], which was funded largely by NSF dollars.” Shiflett, who is a Distinguished Foundation Professor in the School of Engineering at KU and Director of the Institute for Sustainable Engineering, spent the first 30 years of his career in industry at The DuPont Company before making the move to academia in 2019. “Even more exciting for me, is that I get to watch one of my PhD students start what I know is going to be a promising entrepreneurial and scientific career, and do it right across campus at the KU Innovation Park where we can all be a part of it.” The SBIR/STTR program, which provides for-profit small business with billions of dollars of R&D funding each year, has become an increasingly important piece of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, supporting technology startups working to commercialize valuable discoveries at a stage where investors won’t take the risk. “NSF has been critically important in the development of this technology from the beginning, and it was through our participation in NSF’s I-Corps program last year that we realized the commercial potential of the technology and decided to form the company,” says Baca. “We’re honored that NSF believes in the potential impact of the technology as much as we do, and in the ability of our team accomplish this work.”
About Icorium Engineering Company
Icorium Engineering Company is a sustainable engineering company developing technologies to enable and incentivize circular economies for refrigerants, aerosols, and other complex azeotropic chemical mixtures. Icorium was founded in 2022 by KU Foundation Distinguished Professor Mark Shiflett and KU PhD student Kalin Baca to commercialize novel technologies for the separation of commercial refrigerants using ionic liquids. The company is located at the KU Innovation Park, on KU’s West Campus in Lawrence, KS. For more information, visit www.icoriumengineering.com.
About the University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. The university’s mission is to lift students and society by educating leaders, building healthy communities and making discoveries that change the world. KU research addresses problems of worldwide significance, delivers solutions that make a difference to Kansas and the region, and promotes an inclusive community of responsible inquiry and innovation for students and scholars. Visit www.ku.edu.
About NSF’s Small Business Programs
America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $9.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. For more information, visit seedfund.nsf.gov.