I-Corps: Entrepreneurial Development of a Metal-binding Technology Platform

Water metal contamination is a ubiquitous problem due to the many industrialized processes that drive our economy. Examples include mining drainage, metal plating, semiconductor fabrication, and solar cell production. These examples straddle well-established and emerging industries but each poses significant environmental impact due to metal contamination potential. Furthermore, the loss of the associated metals carries an economic consequence as unrecovered material represents a significant missed opportunity in raw material utilization. The purpose of this project is to solve the aforementioned environmental and economic problems that arise from loss of metals through industrialized processes. By doing so, the technology directly aligns with the vision of a ?bio-based economy? (since the proposed approach leverages biotechnology to produce a metal-binding compound) and "green manufacturing." The latter term particularly resonates with the history of the Buffalo, Western New York, and Great Lakes region, and this team will leverage its geographic location and the strong recent developments in New York State start-up opportunities to implement a business plan based upon wastewater metal recovery and re-use. This I-Corps team has designed a heterologous production system for producing a small molecule natural product capable of binding metal compounds with high affinity. Furthermore, the team has recently devised a way to adsorb this compound and associated analogs to a solid matrix which enables a heterogeneous means of removing metal content from contaminated water samples. This proposal seeks to build a laboratory-scale prototype system that incorporates the proposed activated resin within a flow column such that the team can demonstrate a continuous metal removal process using actual wastewater from a near-by metal plating manufacturing company. Due in part to the commercial interest exhibited by this and other potential partners, the team initiated an I-Corps application to enable generation of this prototype and use the associated results and knowledge gained to formally establish a start-up company based upon this technology. Hence, the I-Corps program provides an ideal setting for the two goals to be developed over the award period: 1) metal removal and re-use prototype system development (technical) and 2) customer base establishment, company formation, and business plan development (commercial).