CycloPure Awarded National Science Foundation Phase II SBIR Grant To Develop DEXSORB-MP For Home Use-Water Purification

National Science Foundation Awards CycloPure $725,000 PHASE II SBIR Grant to Develop DEXSORB-MP for Home Use-Water Purification

CycloPure, Inc., a leading innovator in water purification technologies and the developer of DEXSORB filtration products, announced recently that the National Science Foundation has awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant in the amount of $725,000. CycloPure will use this Phase II grant to adapt its DEXSORP-MP adsorbent for home-use applications to filter out micropollutants from drinking water.

“The National Science Foundation supports small businesses with the most innovative, cutting-edge ideas that have the potential to become great commercial successes and make huge societal impacts,” said Barry Johnson, Director of Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships at NSF. “We hope that this seed funding will spark solutions to some of the most important challenges of our time across all areas of science and technology.”

“We are extremely grateful for the ongoing support from the National Science Foundation, which shares our goal of protecting the safety of tap water for Americans,” said CycloPure Chief Science Officer Will Dichtel. “This Phase II grant will accelerate the commercial development of DEXSORB-MP so manufacturers can begin to offer DEXSORB-enhanced filtration products to strip out micropollutants from drinking water.”

Small businesses can receive up to $1.5 M in funding from NSF under its SBIR/STTR program. Companies must first earn a Phase I award (up to $225,000) to qualify for Phase II grants (up to $750,000) to further develop and commercialize their technology. Small businesses with Phase II grants are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investment or sales. All proposals submitted to the NSF SBIR/STTR program undergo a rigorous merit-based review process.

“It’s a major milestone to receive this Phase II award from the National Science Foundation. Proposals undergo a rigorous merit-based review,” said CycloPure Chief Executive Frank Cassou. ”We’ve drawn worldwide interest from companies and municipalities looking to integrate our DEXSORB adsorbents into their water treatment products and applications. NSF’s help with this grant is significant to our plans to introduce our DEXSORB solutions first to the home filtration market.”

Derived from renewable corn-based cyclodextrin, CycloPure’s DEXSORB-MP represents a new class of adsorbents engineered to safely strip away hundreds of micropollutants including perfluorinated compounds (PFOA and PFOS), pesticides, and pharmaceutical compounds which contaminate much of the country’s drinking water. First profiled in Nature in January 2016, DEXSORB-MP’s superior performance over activated carbon has been reported in multiple peer-reviewed studies. A key feature of DEXSORB-MP is its instant uptake of micropollutants enabling its use in home purification systems where consumers require short contact time filtration products.

Making Water Safe - About CycloPure
Founded in 2016, CycloPure is a materials science company and a leader in water purification technologies. The company’s line of DEXSORB adsorbents are based on breakthrough technology that converts renewable cyclodextrins (derived from corn starch) into highly-adsorbent materials capable of eliminating micropollutants from drinking water. Flexible in design, CycloPure has developed two novel adsorbent formulations, DEXSORB MP and DEXSORB PFAS, to address different problems of water treatment.

CycloPure’s DEXSORB adsorbents can be produced in varying particle sizes, allowing for use across a broad spectrum of water purification applications. The company is working with global partners to produce and distribute its DEXSORB adsorbents to meet worldwide interest from manufacturers of home water filtration products, water treatment facility operators, food and beverage companies, and municipalities.

For more information, visit www.cyclopure.com.

About The National Science Foundation’s Small Business Program
America’s Seed Fund powered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards nearly $200M 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 $1.5M in non-dilutive funds 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 $7.5B that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. For more information, visit seedfund.nsf.gov.