Chemical group awards three grants
Article in the Charleston Daily Mail, February 18, 2014
by Jared Hunt, Daily Mail Business Editor
The Chemical Alliance Zone’s Chemicals and Materials Commercialization Fund has awarded grants totaling more than $53,000 to three West Virginia-based companies.
The grants are designed to help the companies bring new technologies and products to market. Funds are provided through a grant to TechConnect West Virginia from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.
Liberty Hydro Inc. received $20,000 for a portable water-filtration pilot unit needed for customer-site demonstrations of Liberty Hydro’s clean-water technology. Liberty Hydro is a spin-off of the Mid-Atlantic Technology and Research Innovation Center, also known as MATRIC. Located at the West Virginia Regional Technology Park, the company uses proprietary technology to develop industrial water purification systems.
Keen Process Technologies LLC, also located at the tech park, was awarded $15,000 to fund studies and intellectual property protection for a new, green process to make acrylic acid. Acrylic acid is a key raw material used in the production of various plastics, coatings and other materials like diaper products.
Vandalia Research Inc., a Huntington biotechnology company that was a spinout from Marshall University, received $18,220 for an analytical system that will help it commercialize a key product and earn necessary industry certification and compliance. The company’s Triathlon DNA production technology allows for the large-scale production of DNA.
“We are excited about all three companies and technologies, and we’re pleased the CAM Fund is being used to boost commercialization efforts for some of West Virginia’s startup companies and entrepreneurs,” said Dr. Kevin DiGregorio, Chemical Alliance Zone executive director. “That is exactly what it was designed to do.”