EPA SBIR Small Business Receives 2020 Tibbetts Award
4/28/2021 New Update: In addition to their Tibbetts Award, ASAT has also received EPA recognition for their success. ASAT was awarded a 2021 EPA Administrator’s Small Business Program Award for Outstanding Accomplishments by a Small Business Contractor. This award recognizes ASAT’s outstanding contributions in Fiscal Year 2020 and their efforts to promote EPA priorities of protecting human health and the environment.
Each year, the U.S. Small Business Administration honors the best and brightest within the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program with Tibbetts Awards. Named after Roland Tibbetts, the founder of the SBIR program, Tibbetts Awards recognize the companies, organizations, and individuals who exemplify SBIR achievement with measurable impacts. Nominees are judged on technical innovation, business impact and overall societal and economic benefit. This year, ASAT, Inc., an EPA SBIR-funded small business, was awarded a Tibbetts Award for their success and excellence.
ASAT, Inc. is an EPA SBIR small business out of Oregon. ASAT’s EPA SBIR projects focused on the development of the ASAT Integrated Stove, an affordable and clean-burning biomass stove for heating and cooking. Nearly 3 billion people in the world depend on the burning of biomass and coal in rudimentary stoves or open fires and are exposed to smoke with high concentrations of fine particles composed of toxic compounds. The Integrated Stove has innovative stand-alone, affordable accessories, including a thermoelectric generator to provide light and charge cell phones; an efficient air-cooled radiator; the Jet-Flame, a cleaning system for the combustion chamber that reduces fine particulate matter emissions by 90 percent; and an electrostatic precipitator, which eliminates smoke output through the chimney and captures 95–99 percent of fine particulate matter. U.S. and global sales of ASAT’s accessories guarantee smoke-free biomass heating and cooking, resulting in protected health, sustainable energy use, cleaner cooking with biomass and reduced respiratory illness.
EPA SBIR funding was critical to develop, manufacture and market ASAT’s innovations. “EPA SBIR funding enabled ASAT to research and develop many commercially viable inventions,” said Dean Still, ASAT’s Executive Director. “This includes the Jet-Flame that increases combustion efficiency, an air-cooled thermoelectric generator, a low-cost electrostatic precipitator and the clean-burning Integrated Stove which has all of these features.”
EPA funding has also led ASAT to accelerate the commercialization of their innovative technologies. Since receiving their award, ASAT has attracted a partnership with the Gates-funded Global Health Laboratories and additional funding from third-party sources. EPA SBIR funding allowed ASAT to succeed in making international sales and its products are now found in more than 30 countries, including a tender from the Nigerian government for 25,000 Integrated Stoves. “Without EPA SBIR, this would not have happened,” said Still.
2020 marks the first year since 2016 that SBA has announced Tibbetts Awards. EPA SBIR small businesses have a history of receiving these prestigious awards. Here are some of EPA’s most recent winners.
2016 Winners
Lucid Design Group Inc., is an EPA SBIR small business out of California. Their EPA SBIR award focused on developing software that drives energy conservation and savings in commercial buildings. Lucid’s use of modern energy management best practices helps the world’s leading organizations to meet and exceed their energy and sustainability goals. EPA SBIR funding helped commercialize Lucid’s software, which has been used in thousands of buildings in metropolitan areas like Chicago, Orlando and Washington.
GVD Corporation is an EPA SBIR small business out of Massachusetts. GVD used EPA SBIR funding to create a mold-release coating made of high purity polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) that uses no organic solvents or Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). As a result, air quality is improved inside manufacturing facilities. These facilities, in turn, release fewer toxic emissions into the environment. EPA’s SBIR funding helped GVD partner with a major automotive parts manufacturer to produce millions of tires using their innovative coatings.
2015 Winner
Precision Combustion Inc. (PCI) is a small business based in Connecticut. Since 1990, PCI has received 11 EPA SBIR awards. They were named a 2015 Tibbetts Award winner for their development of advanced performance catalytic reactors and systems for energy, defense and environmental applications. PCI has become a leader in catalytic system technology and their commercial success includes 80 US patents, multiple licensees and a wide customer base.
2013 Winner
Ecovative Design, LLC is a New York-based small business and recipient of multiple EPA SBIR awards for their innovative MycoFoamTM materials – grown from the mushroom component mycelium – as a replacement for hydrocarbon-derived synthetics in packaging, insulation, and structural cores. These innovative biomaterials are cost-competitive and environmentally preferable. Since their first EPA SBIR award in 2009, Ecovative has had commercial success with their environmental technology including international licensees and partnerships with government agencies, academic institutions and commercial representatives.
SBA press release: SBA Announces Recipients of Tibbetts Awards for Demonstrating Significant Economic and Social Impact from R&D Funding