AquaMost: WARF start-up AquaMost and Encotech receive SBIR grant to develop advanced water purification device based on UW-Madison technology

Contact: Dr. Terence Barry, AquaMost, terry@aquamostlabs.com, 608.843.1425

Jason Lalli, Encotech, jdlalli@encotech.com, 724.222.3334

Madison, Wis – AquaMost, LLC, a start-up company based on University of Wisconsin-Madison technology and licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and Encotech, Inc., a provider of products, systems, and services for the environmental remediation industry, announced today that they have been awarded a $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop and commercialize an advanced water purification device capable of removing organic pollutants and pathogens from water. The grant will assist AquaMost and Encotech in their joint effort to penetrate the $11B environmental remediation marketplace in the United States.

According to Dr. Terence Barry, AquaMost President and director of Research and Development, “The SBIR funding from NIH allows us to field test our patented technology on groundwater contaminated with pollutants from leaking underground gasoline storage tanks. There are over 200,000 such sites in the US. Some of these pollutants such as benzene and MTBE are significant health hazards, and very difficult and expensive to remediate using current methods.”

AquaMost, LLC was formed in 2006 by four scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to commercialize a technology called photoelectrocatalytic oxidation (PECO). AquaMost is licensing key PECO patents from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the university’s private nonprofit technology transfer organization, and plans to work with Encotech and other strategic partners to quickly penetrate emerging markets for clean water technologies.

Encotech, Inc. was founded in 1976 to supply activated carbon to the environmental remediation marketplace and has grown to become a leading provider of customized environmental treatment systems and services for commercial, industrial and residential markets. Encotech operates offices in Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Louisiana and services clients throughout the United States.