A small Bloomfield chemistry company has patented a new environmentally friendly clean-up technology that will soon change the $19 billion remediation industry, with a big assist from the federal government.
VeruTEK Technologies Inc. worked closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop and commercialize a catalyst that can help remove contamination on a site without adding harmful chemicals of its own.
The Green-nano Zero Valent Iron, or G-nZVI, also will help treat wastewater generated in the oil and gas industry. VeruTEK expects to be generating millions off this one patent in the near future.
“This will be the catalyst of choice,” said Dan Socci, VeruTEK CEO. “It is going to have a significant impact on the industry.”
Just as VeruTEK stands to profit from its collaboration with the EPA, all sorts of government agencies want to work with companies to develop new and exciting technologies that help them meet their goals.
“There are a number of government agencies that work with universities and sometimes companies to develop patents,” said Jonathan Harris, a partner with Axinn Veltrop Harkrider LLP in Hartford, which does intellectual property work. “Various government agencies are always looking for ways to improve technology.”
The brilliance of this new technology for VeruTEK is it uses plant-based products to do the work that chemicals did before, which is to relieve tension between substances that are stuck together. It works like a heavy-duty soap, but for cleaning contaminated materials out of soil and other materials.
The materials in G-nZVI “naturally degrade, so they can be left in place once applied,” said EPA spokeswoman Mollie Leomon, “offering an attractive alternative to standard cleanup methods of extracting and hauling away contaminated soils for offsite cleaning before they are trucked back in and replaced.”
Because it is plant-based, G-nZVI is more environmentally friendly than any other catalyst on the market. The product is less expensive and less volatile with a longer shelf life and easier to store, Socci said.
This is the first patented catalyst for the company that was founded in 2006. At 30 employees, VeruTEK is small, but the firm is expecting big things from this new technology it started selling in February. It formally received the patent in late June.
The American remediation market — the process of cleaning contaminated sites — is a $19 billion industry, although the catalyst portion is much smaller. The potential clientele for VeruTEK is nearly endless, from manufacturers keeping a factory clean to remediation consulting firms that clean EPA Superfund sites.
Getting the patent is the real win for VeruTEK, as it gives the company a monopoly on the catalyst market, Harris said.
“A patent can mean the world to a small company like this,” Harris said. “That product can corner the marketplace, and it can prevent competitive entry into the market.”
The key, though, is how the patent is written, Harris said. It needs to withstand challenges from competitors, particularly from larger companies that can use their size to develop similar technologies and push small companies out of the market.
“Writing a patent is more art than science and you want to make sure you have adequate coverage to block competition and prevent their entry into the market,” Harris said.
Developing the G-nZVI took nearly three years and significant work by the EPA.
VeruTEK applied to work with EPA under the tech transfer program, hoping to develop green chemistry technologies. EPA accepted VeruTEK’s partnership, and the researchers worked jointly together to develop the catalyst.
The green cleaning technology was developed at EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory in Cincinnati and provided it to VeruTEK to commercialize for remediation of pollutants, Lemon said.
The EPA collaboration with a small private Connecticut firm is part of a larger agency and federal government endeavor to bring new technologies to the marketplace, called Cooperative Research and Development Agreements.
The EPA’s goals include cleaning contaminated sites all over the country, and any technology that can remediate these sites faster, cheaper and cleaner helps the agency accomplish its goals better, Lemon said.
Similar programs have been in place since the passage of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 and are common among other federal agencies, too, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health.
VeruTEK, which did not disclose its financials, and EPA will share in the royalties from the G-nZVI.
“It is a great growth opportunity for us,” Socci said. “We look forward to bringing this technology to the market.”
