On our radar 2024

Elateq treats a multitude of water contaminants with electricity

The landfill on the southeastern edge of Amherst, Massachusetts, closed in the 1980s, but city officials say it’s still causing iron and manganese to leach into the groundwater. For years, residents have reported orange, contaminated water, so the town is trying out a new water treatment system developed by the start-up Elateq.

Founded in 2020, Elateq uses an electrochemical cell to remove metals, pathogens, organic pollutants, and other contaminants. The system has a specialized carbon material that acts as bipolar electrodes. Cofounder and Chief Science Officer Ljiljana Rajic says fine-tuning the voltages across the electrodes enables the system to carry out reduction and oxidation reactions at the same time.

On one side of the carbon, the electricity generates hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize organic pollutants. On the opposite side, the electricity reduces metals in the water and causes them to get plated onto the cathode. A capacitive deionization process elsewhere in the carbon simultaneously removes salts.

“Those are the three main processes,” Rajic says. “They’re all happening on the same block of carbon, but on different parts of the carbon.”

Rajic says the system is simpler than existing multistep water treatment methods. And using electricity eliminates the need for water treatment chemicals or membranes, reducing the system’s cost and carbon footprint.

In October, the company started up a solar- powered water treatment system in Amherst that processes 150,000 L of water per day. Elateq is also running a pilot system to treat wastewater from a PepsiCo facility in Kolkata, India.

In September, Elateq received a US National Science Foundation grant to scale up a second generation of the technology, which will also remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The company hopes to have it ready by 2029, when public water systems in the US are required to start removing the chemicals.

Group1 makes better batteries with potassium

The Nobel Prize–winning battery researcher John Goodenough’s first commercially successful lithium-ion battery used lithium cobalt oxide as a cathode material. The material performed well, but the cobalt made it expensive. He went on to create lithium iron phosphate (LFP), a cheaper material that is common in electric cars.

The start-up Group1 says it’s taking the next step in this evolution by commercializing another battery chemistry developed in Goodenough’s lab at the University of Texas at Austin. This battery stores electricity with potassium Prussian white, which is less expensive than the lithium chemicals used in LFP batteries today. And while many lithium chemicals are processed in China, potassium-based materials should be easier to source from elsewhere.

Nearly all consumer electronics and electric cars currently use lithium-ion batteries. When the price of lithium spiked to historic highs in 2022, battery makers started considering alternatives. Some companies have proposed using sodium as a cheap replacement for lithium, but Group1 cofounder and CEO Alexander Girau says sodium-ion batteries don’t store enough energy for most cars.

In addition, sodium-ion batteries use a hard carbon anode material, while potassium-ion batteries can use graphite anodes, the same material used in lithium-ion batteries. This feature makes it easier to drop Group1’s potassium-based cathode into existing lithium-ion manufacturing processes.

The crash in lithium prices in 2023 eased some concerns about battery costs, so Girau says Group1 is leaning into potassium’s other advantages. He says potassium batteries can charge faster and perform better at low temperatures than lithium-ion batteries.

The company has raised $6 million so far and is in the midst of additional fundraising. The company recently started producing potassium-ion batteries about the size of lip balm tubes and is delivering test batteries to several carmakers.

“American automotives in general have been much more motivated to engage than I anticipated,” Girau says. “They’re looking for any solution that reduces reliance on China.”

Matereal is making polyurethane from plants and CO₂

Spun out of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2020, Matereal combines artificial intelligence with biotechnology to turn linseed oil and carbon dioxide into bespoke polymers that it can design to be biodegradable, compostable, or recyclable. The technology stems from research by cofounder and molecular biologist Philip Pienkos.

Matereal’s process starts with the epoxidation of fatty acids from linseed oil. The epoxidized fatty acids then react with CO₂ to form carbonated monomers. These monomers react with biobased diamines in a polymerization process that yields a curable, nonisocyanate polyurethane.

Up to 30% of the final polymer by weight is CO₂. The company claims that its first product is cost competitive with—if not cheaper than—standard isocyanate-based polyurethane made from fossil fuels. It will be used to make coatings and fabrics for the textile industry.

In July, the company raised $4.5 million in seed funding. The firm plans to open a prepilot facility in Golden, Colorado, by year-end. Subsequently, it aims to build a facility capable of producing up to 3,000 metric tons per year of biobased polyurethane. This amount would generate about $18 million in annual revenue “to prove our model,” cofounder and CEO Jaqueline Ros Amable recently said on the podcast Grow Everything.

Pheronym protects crops with nematode pheromones

Parasitic nematodes and insects cost farmers billions of dollars in crop losses each year. As regulators ban synthetic pesticides used to kill these pests, farmers are looking for new solutions.

The start-up Pheronym says nematode pheromones could be a less toxic alternative. The company is developing two pheromone-based products—one that repels harmful, parasitic nematodes and another that boosts the efficacy of beneficial, insect-killing nematodes.

Some nematodes harm plants by attacking the roots and stealing nutrients. But if these nematodes detect a pheromone that signals a plant is already infected, they avoid it. Pheronym is developing a seed coating that uses this pheromone to keep nematodes away.

Currently, many farmers rely on crop varieties that are resistant to parasitic nematode infections, but Pheronym cofounder and CEO Fatma Kaplan says the organisms are starting to break through these defenses. Parasitic nematodes are a bigger problem at high temperatures, so as the climate warms, farmers could see even more damage. “They really need help,” Kaplan says. “Climate change is putting huge pressure on the resistant germ lines.”

Other nematodes help plants thrive by killing insect pests. Farmers can already buy these beneficial organisms and spread them on their fields, but they aren’t always as active as farmers would like. Kaplan says another product her company is developing tells the nematodes to seek out insects more aggressively, increasing the number of pests they kill by 75%.

She was inspired to investigate nematode pheromones after seeing the success of pheromones that control insects. At the start of her research in 2005, scientists knew little about nematode pheromones, and it took her years to identify pheromones that would work as crop protection products.

Kaplan cofounded the company in 2017. Pheronym is now scaling up its manufacturing in Woodland, California. Kaplan hopes that in a year, the firm will be selling its products to greenhouse operators, first the beneficial nematode stimulant and later the parasitic nematode repellent. The company plans to expand to fruit and nut orchards and, eventually, row crops like corn and soy.

Ultra High Materials is formulating cement that is cheaper and greener

With technology licensed from the Catholic University of America, Ultra High Materials (UHM) stands out among a sea of start-ups by offering low-carbon, high-strength alternatives to concrete. Instead of making concrete from the standard highly carbon-intensive process that uses portland cement, UHM makes its concrete with a composite binder that features blast furnace slag, fly ash, fumed silica, and metakaolin. UHM also uses a stoichiometrically optimized activator consisting of potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide, silica, and water.

Well in excess of 50% of concrete’s CO₂ emissions come from the use of portland cement. UHM reckons its cement formulation has a substantially smaller carbon footprint than portland cement while costing less. “It’s stronger, faster to strength, much more durable, and we can make this at up to 65% lower cost when compared to the raw material cost of portland cement concrete,” CEO Jonathan Cool told judges as he pitched the company at Hello Tomorrow’s technology start-up competition, held earlier this year in Paris.

UHM says it can vary its formulation to make concrete of different strengths. At the top end, it can make a material with a compressive strength that is up to eight times that of standard concrete.

UHM says the level of interest in its product is outstripping its ability to deliver enough test material. The company now has an eye on providing product batches over 10 m³ so that its prospective customers are able to commit to commercial agreements. The company is seeking financial and strategic partners so that it can scale up production.