Ionomr – Net-Zero CO2 & Antimicrobials

Dr. Benjamin Britton is a founder and the Chief Strategy Officer of Ionomr Innovations Inc., dedicated to decarbonizing the planet with breakthrough advanced materials that enable a revolution in the cost-effectiveness of hydrogen technologies and CO2 conversion systems. He is a World Energy Council ‘Expert in Innovation,’ Business in Vancouver ‘Top 40 under 40,’ Hong Kong-Canada Business Association ‘Entrepreneurial Achiever Under 35,’ and inventor on seven patents with an h-factor of thirteen. He has been instrumental in raising over $10M in venture capital and grant funding to date. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, previously attaining a BSc in Chemistry, BA in English Literature, and graduate certificates in theology & technology commercialization.

There are two large problems I am committed to solving that are very different, but have one core solution. The first is global warming and the second is the problem of microbial transmission in hospitals, care homes, and public places.

My proposed project supports the further development of materials created by the company I founded, Ionomr, and the development of MVPs for two spinouts to bring these technologies to full commercialization.

Ionomr’s materials will help human flourishing by allowing us to achieve net-zero carbon and elimination of the many negative externalities of fossil fuel and fluorinated materials by 10 years or more versus the current trajectory by substantially improving keystone technologies. The antimicrobial application will reduce our current collective anxiety about surface-transmissible diseases, save many lives by preventing nosocomial infections and exert an even greater future benefit as antibiotic resistance and zoonotic respiratory viruses become ever more threatening.

The first problem is industrial pollution including carbon dioxide emission that causes global warming, ocean acidification, and trillions of dollars in health effects – coal alone costs $300-500B in the United States alone (doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05890.x). Everyone is affected, and developing and least-developed economies most of all as developed nations have materially shifted their pollution to these nations in a shameful and ever-increasing practice.

Industrial chemical solutions are underdeveloped due to fundamental materials limitations and lack of awareness, and hydrogen and other critical technologies to the  energy transition are scaling on the basis of toxic, bioaccumulative materials that undermine the effect and will impact the whole world at end of life. Ionomr’s solves this issue before it becomes a disaster. Carbon conversion technologies are under-developed and less-efficient technologies are scaling irrationally. The carbon conversion subsidiary addresses this. Again, everyone is affected.

The second problem is transmission of pathogens on public space fomites commonly encountered by health-care workers and the public, such as elevator buttons, railings, empty hand-sanitizer containers, and medical devices, significantly reducing the burden of infectious disease acquired through common public spaces, such as hospitals. The second subsidiary addresses this, again affecting everyone, especially in resource-limited settings.

Ionomr produces advanced ion-exchange materials that replace system-limiting and highly toxic materials in electrochemical applications, a critical step to achieve global climate targets.

There are two types of ion-exchange materials, anion-exchange membranes designed to conduct hydroxide (OH-, strong base, also known as alkaline or caustic) or other anions, and proton-exchange membranes designed to transport protons (H+, strong acid) or other cations (e.g. Li+). 

Ion-exchange materials are used as thin active barrier films and electrode binder for electrochemical systems, the most efficient means of conducting chemical separations and reactions. Separations represents a large proportion of industrial energy use; electrochemical systems enable world-changing efficiencies. 

These systems include mobility, major industrial processes, energy storage, home heating, and other keystone technologies necessary to achieve global net zero emissions. Our breakthrough technology unlocks low-cost green hydrogen, long-lived fuel cells, and profitable CO2 conversion into industrial chemicals such as alcohols and ethylene. 

The first subsidiary I propose accelerates a new engineering technology for CO2 capture and conversion systems. The second deploys one of Ionomr's materials as the first universal antimicrobial coating for use in hospitals, care homes, public spaces, and indefinite, passive disinfection to a degree beyond that obtainable by even the most rigorous sanitization protocols.

Both clean technologies and antimicrobial coatings serve everyone, especially in resource-limited settings. Contaminated surfaces are a major cause of the spread of respiratory illnesses, which kill 1.5M people in a normal year, and residual contamination of viruses and bacteria remains even

after rigorous cleaning and disinfection procedure (doi:10.1128/AEM.02144-12). Ionomr offers cost-effective, passive solutions to reduce disease transmission and benefit everyone.

Sustainably sourced and cost-effective renewable energy and industrial technologies enable sustainable growth in the world without playing favourites, enabling middle- and low-income nations to prosper as all humanity seeks to counteract climate change. Europe, a continent of high-income nations, can afford to go carbon-neutral by 2050, but no middle- or low-income country can. Paradoxically, growth and investment in these nations are actually stymied by the increasing regulations of high-income countries. Ionomr’s materials offer a revolutionary advance in the cost-effectiveness not just of going carbon-neutral, but for the development of fully renewable micro-grids and other methods developing nations can boost productivity and bring prosperity without a negative environmental or human impact. Many nations are affected by the negative externalities of fossil fuel and chemical production – enabling clean technologies with a massively reduced environmental footprint again addresses this major issue.

The problems of climate change, industrial pollution, and sanitization are in the public mind without concrete, actionable solutions in an acceptable timeframe. For the climate, innovations are required by 2030 - Ionomr is enabling hundreds of projects and thousands of researchers to develop breakthrough applications that represent literally the most efficient possible solutions, which are cost-effective and universally deployable, unlike many other clean technology and health solutions.

The problems of PFAS and other industrial pollution are not in the public mind. The Elevate Prize serves to build awareness of the problem and Ionomr’s platform materials and their applications.

In 2012 I joined a project in the lab of Professor Steven Holdcroft at Simon Fraser University in Greater Vancouver, Canada, that was dedicated to materials nobody thought could work after 25 years of ubiquitous failure to replace incumbent PFAS materials. These failures included major efforts industry-leading players such as BASF, W.L. Gore, and others, leading to a near-total abandonment of effort by 2005. Further, these materials were designed specifically for a market, green hydrogen production and use, that had similarly gone through a ‘bust’ by 2005. Two synthesists provided me materials, one working since 2010 and the other from 2012. As the only device-focused student, I single-handedly worked through every parameter to solve the problem, giving me insight into process development. After solving substantial process issues with our initial materials, I realized the core of the technology in both materials families were achieving performances, consistencies, and lifetimes only dreamed about, giving me impetus to learn about technology commercialization, propose the idea to my co-founders, and pursue the technology license and venture funding. The antimicrobial idea came from knowledge of my materials, and a conversation about obscure drinking water technology development with my wife, a medical doctor.

I’ve had a vision to decarbonize the planet with enabling advanced materials since an experience with a DuPont-related research project in my undergraduate. I was convinced in 2007 that advanced materials could significantly accelerate a global energy transition to hydrogen-related technologies, and the fluorinated materials that were used presented a major environmental threat to the world.

In the intervening years the issues of climate change and industrial pollution have only become more acute, and the fact we’re trying to scale many keystone technologies for the renewable energy economy based on extremely toxic, irrecoverable materials that will replace transitory GHG emissions for permanent ones is endlessly distressing to me and provides a burning fire of motivation to solve these issues.

My passion for the issue of sanitization came out of supporting my wife through her biochemistry, microbiome startup, and medical undergraduate, through which the growing, also under-appreciated problem of antibiotic resistance and nosocomial infections loomed large. COVID-19 particularly brought the problem of surface viral transmission to the fore, but bacterial transmission provides an even worse threat to humanity and a continuous diminution of the effectiveness of hospitals. Ionomr can solve and I am passionate about bringing this technology to market.

I am one of the few people in the world with the experience and credibility able to bridge electrochemical engineering, polymer chemistry, and surface coating, all of which are required to fully understand the vision to bring advanced hydrocarbon ion-exchange materials to the world. I have excellent communication and leadership skills paired with sufficient personality, motivation, and integrity to efficaciously bring the vision to investors, government, and the world.

I have been driven by a vision to decarbonize the planet for many years – studying humanities and theology gave me an appreciation for ‘shalom’ – peace that represents a true human and environmental flourishing as the best possible, harmonious life we could live. This gave me the motivation for tireless work despite many setbacks to get into an impactful project in materials chemistry to make the vision a reality. To that end, I built a team of world experts with a knowledge of the necessary requirements of technology paired with a passion for commercialization, capable of incredibly rapid achievement in the face of difficult problems.

Commercialization of any materials technology requires a fiery vision and unwavering motivation, as this is a difficult and resource-intensive business in a sector that has been under-resourced for decades. I have these traits, which have given me the ability to ‘walk through walls’ for more than a decade and as a result my vision is on the very cusp of having a global impact on the most pressing economic and health problems of our day. 

The materials that became Ionomr’s Pemion™ weren’t supposed to work, and even if they did, they weren’t supposed to be scalable. I ultimately convinced my team that problems could be overcome and this led to greater success than I believed possible. My convictions drove the team’s success and taught me the value of vision-centred leadership.

During my PhD, the first samples I developed into devices and tested both under-performed and auto-ignited either in production or test. Seeing months of tireless effort literally going up in flames is a difficult and discouraging experience.

I developed new test methods for system conditioning which stopped the problem in test, involving much discussion with test stations and nights sleeping in the lab. Then I walked through every step of the synthesis and production of these materials with the two synthesists and discovered they were contaminating samples with combustible fibers, which would catch on fire when I deposited a highly active platinum catalyst. Fixing this, the performance immediately increased together with test consistency. We were able to generate the performance and chemical durability data necessary to warrant further exploration of this project, which culminated in several record-breaking performances of this material in the field.

I led three other co-founders of Ionomr, my PI and two of his colleagues. Despite being junior, I quickly proved able to overcome obstacles with minimal support, led the team to triumph over large challenges, and attracted quality individuals to join our organization including the three key members of the company that scaled wifi for the world. Now, in addition to strategy and finance I successfully manage the quality control and test organization.

My leadership saved Ionomr before we raised our initial funding – the CEO of a successful corporation in industrial water treatment showed interest in our technology and promised us $2.5M as part of a larger government project. He met the team. We disclosed our technology and presented demonstrations. With less than 24h to the deadline, he withdrew and kept all money in his organization. He then sought to control our company and get highly preferential terms to our technology with a small investment, and attempted to divide our team. This was very discouraging but I rallied the team and was able to convince them to reject the ‘investment’ offer by proceeding on my own to ‘soft circle’ $400k investment, which ultimately turned into our $1.7M seed round.

Our materials are unique - for our two product families, we pioneered two commercially unknown methods of polymerization to bring these materials to market, allowing composition-of-matter patents on the entire families and design methodologies, the strongest, 'pharmaceutical-grade' type of patents, further layered by coverage of specific formulations and both general and specific coverage of devices.

Hydrocarbon ionic materials should be less stable and lower performing than 'magic but toxic' fluorinated materials. Through pioneering molecular design eliminating known degradation modes, Ionomr's materials became the first and only ion-exchange materials to display orders-of-magnitude chemical stability against this and competitive materials paired with extreme mechanical strength and proven commercial scalability. The unique cost-competitiveness, performance, lifetime, enhanced capabilities, and enablement of end-of-life precious metal recycling combine to make this a disruptive technology to both CAPEX and OPEX in green hydrogen generation by electrolysis, efficient hydrogen use in fuel cell electric vehicles and generators and other electrochemical technologies. 

When it comes to carbon capture and conversion into useful industrial feedstocks and fuels, Ionomr's materials are fundamentally enabling, unlocking new thresholds of performance (e.g. doi:10.1016/j.joule.2019.07.021) and new systems as are proposed in the carbon capture focused subsidiary. 

For the antimicrobial film I rediscovered a virtually unknown use-case of our materials class and the fact that through our advanced molecular engineering and use of bleeding edge polymer chemistry had solved all the issues the prevented this deployment decades prior.

The existing problems I am addressing are known near-universally - the effects of climate change and poor sanitation in healthcare are compelling and obviously increasing. 

The currently proposed solutions are equally obviously non-egalitarian. The renewable energy transition is based on expensive technology, while only cost-effective technologies and truly sustainable may be adopted by developing economies, limiting the ownership of the future multi-trillion dollar renewable energy economy to developed nations. On the current trajectory, the health and other external benefits of this adoption will occur in developed nations decades earlier. Likewise, it is clear that even in ideal circumstances, santization in healthcare and public spaces is limited in developing nations, and the limited supply chains are decimated in an emergency. A passive, permanent, cost-effective, and more thorough solution provides an answer. I believe in solving these problem at their core and this will enable equal and sustainable adoption and benefit.

1) Make the fundamental materials available.

2) Demonstrate cost-effective and genuinely sustainably created solutions, including for green hydrogen production, fuel cell electric vehicles and micro-grids, and profitable carbon capture/conversion and clean industrial systems. Demonstrate the antimicrobial systems are highly effective in both world-leading healthcare facilities and low-resource settings.

3) Leverage every tool to educate markets and drive universal adoption wherever these systems are more effective and sustainable than current practices. Technologies are tied to infrastructure deployment, so this requires education of many levels of governments and major corporations on the benefits - economic competitiveness and addressing immmediate health concerns in the short term, and long-term benefits of increased public health and global human flourishing. A movement of educated citizens pressuring both of these groups is also required to stimulate change. In all of this third step, my job is mainly to find clear-sighted and influential partners to share my vision and exert their influence in their community and stimulate change from there.

Ionomr has sold materials to more than 120 companies and more than 50 of these represent active engagements (design-ins through industrial pilots) with major OEMs critical to the renewable energy economy, representing >$100B in revenues. We underlie multiple NRC Hydrogen & CO2 Challenge projects and supply more than 70 research institutes. These activities enable over 1000 critical, expert researchers from nations representing four billion people. 

In one year, we hope to take this above 5,000 and have sight to design-ins for technologies that meaningfully impact the energy use and health outcomes of over 50,000,000 people. In five years, the target is to be engaged directly in technologies that improve the energy and health outcomes of over 50,000,000 people, meaningfully affect everybody indirectly, and be engaged in design-ins within sight of impacts in the billions of people.

My goals within the next year are to raise funds into Ionomr, provide compelling MVPs for both the carbon capture and antimicrobial spinouts, raise funds for these, and recruit talented teams to take these technologies to the world. 

Within the next five years my goal for Ionomr is to eliminate the use of perfluorinated materials in every energy technology and demonstrate delivered hydrogen cost well below $4/kg (gallon equivalent), paving the path for rapid adoption of a fully renewable hydrogen-based energy economy faster than the Paris Agreement requires and the IEA, IRENA, WEC and others target. 

My goal for the CO2 spinout is to demonstrate the most carbon-capture system possible and have this deployed at more than 10,000 industrial sites, with pilots for at least five other carbon-to-chemical and carbon-to-fuel technologies. 

My goal is that the cumulative benefit of fluorinated materials replacement, hydrogen economy acceleration, and the enablement of other carbon-to-value programs represents a path to an elimination of 4 Gt of CO2 by 2030 and an elimination of >4 Gt/y thereafter.

My goal is for the antimicrobial coating to positively impact the health outcomes of more than 100,000,000 people representing every nation and save >100,000 lives. 

All of these goals are achievable with an ability to draw the resources described, excellence in team- and partnership-building, and education of key stakeholders in government and corporations to choose the responsible, sustainable, and most cost-effective path to desired outcomes in the renewable energy economy and public health.

Ionomr has runway through Q2 2021 and the major financial barrier is the need for a Venture Capital ‘Series A’ round. The ‘lean’ state includes no resources to launch the projects I’ve presented. 

The only major technical issues we face are that the design-in process requires significant know-how and resources that Ionomr needs to support in order to accelerate adoption rate and success.

Legal barriers are minimal - our polymers are green & non-toxic. 

The market barrier we require is profitability at a small scale selling into markets that require competitiveness with materials currently at a large volume.We supply critical components to key technologies for entire nations and several developed nations require national supply chains.

The biggest barrier is market and general apathy, both with respect to the technology and the problem it solves. 

Our material look like a plastic film and are a sub-component of a sub-system. However, this material is ubiquitously the critical pain point that replaces a devastatingly bad material that will undermine the impact of many critical technologies for the renewable energy transition and will poison literally everyone on the planet. North Americans all have a toxic body burden. The Nordic Council estimates 52-84B Euros per year in health impacts in Europe alone.  System end-of-life either releases bioaccumulative toxic liquids or ‘F-gases,’ extreme GHGs persistent for 10,000+  years. Most corporations are blind to this impact. 

To overcome financial barriers, Ionomr is actively in conversations related to a $15-20M Series A round. Despite COVID-19 we received one term sheet already and will raise by Q1 2021. My intention is to separately raise into the two subsidiary companies once the desired demonstrations are accomplished through the Elevate Prize. To accelerate the antimicrobial application, I have applied to three different COVID challenges through the NRC, Canadian Medical Association, and the Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster. We hired an expert researcher in CO2 systems to lead the technical side; engineering efforts are on hold pending the Series A.

Current employees and expert consultants can deal with the legal issues. To achieve design-ins to strategic supply chains globally, my team has proven capabilities to develop differentiated supply chains for China, Japan, North America, and Europe.

Market cost requirements are addressed by the fact we are replacing extremely dangerous and costly chemistry including fluorination, the most dangerous industrial reaction. Our materials that use green chemistry and <5% the energy. This translates to a far lower production cost, and ultimately cost-competitiveness at the ~1 tonne scale with >10,000 tonne scale materials. We will develop multiple sources of supply and scale to significantly out-compete the toxic incumbent materials.

We are driving larger-scale awareness through government lobbying (newly a Canadian government ‘key account’), a media campaign that has been delayed by COVID-19, and involvement in the hydrogen-related activities of several organizations including the World Energy Council and the Canadian and American Hydrogen & Fuel Cell societies.

Ionomr has been awarded a Joint-Development Agreement with Nouryon, a 5B Euro company formerly the specialty chemical division of Akzo-Nobel, which has committed to 4 GW of green hydrogen production by 2030, 10% of Europe’s commitment to that point, who estimates a >$1B USD savings employing Ionomr’s technlogy. Similar JDA conversations are progressing with major oil companies, oil-field suppliers, and natural gas utilities all looking to pivot to green hydrogen. JDA activities focus on driving in-device scaling with partners through a progressive design-in process (R&D proof of concept, small industrial pilot, full industrial pilot for BOM qualification, first full installation, and finally serial installations).

In addition to supplying materials to more than 70 research groups, Ionomr partners with multiple research organizations globally including NREL & Argonne National Labs in the US, SINTEF in Norway, the Danish Technical University, DLR + multiple Frauenhofer & Helmholtz institutes in Germany. In-device feedback to determine capabilities and drive the tuning of our materials to further enhance our product offerings and guide design-ins to greater and faster success both initially and through the design-in process.

Ionomr is and the antimicrobial subsidiary will be positioned as asset-light for-profit materials suppliers high in the value chain, sometimes called the component or sub-assembly level. The goal of these organizations is to achieve profitability through pure materials sales and drive and develop next-generation applications through developing demonstration abilities and freely available reference designs to accelerate adoption. 

This is very similar business model to that which my CEO and other key team members, who turned an innovative process technology into a sub-assembly available in reference designs that ultimately set wifi standards. This strategy succeeded, and scaled wifi radio technology to over a billion units per year while cutting cost by more than an order of magnitude to make it a reality for virtually everyone.  

The CO2 subsidiary will position as a for-profit engineering company, selling CO2-concentrating and ultimately CO2-to-chemical and CO2-to-fuel electroreduction systems as modules to larger system integrators building factories for oil & gas, mining, cement, steel, and other CO2-intensive industrial processes. This company will position as a technology developer and partner with engineering companies globally. This is a typical business model in electrochemical engineering that will require partnerships with large full-system industrial engineering firms globally to accelerate adoption and provide a pipeline for the adoption of future systems.

Detailed further below, all three entities will raise significant external venture capital and grant funding within the next 24 months to achieve financial sustainability.

Ionomr and the two subsidiaries are for-profit relying on sales of products to achieve sustainable operation and drive future development. The ‘asset light’ part comes from leveraging the depreciated assets of major chemical suppliers upstream and film/coating manufacturing lines downstream to create the products these companies supply globally. Ionomr and the antimicrobial subsidiary are materials suppliers whose long-term business relies on continued development of a pipeline of world-leading materials. The capital raises and major grants detailed below will take both companies to breakeven. While growth capital and further grants may be leveraged, these are comparatively less challenging to come by given the large impacts of these businesses.

The CO2 subsidiary will position as a for-profit engineering company, selling CO2-concentrating and ultimately CO2-to-chemical and CO2-to-fuel electroreduction systems as modules to larger system integrators building factories for oil & gas, mining, cement, steel, and other CO2-intensive industrial processes. After a series A raise and proof of concept in an industrial scale device, achieving global impact with these systems will either rely on partnering with multiple large design-engineering company to bring devices mass market or a significant infusion of growth capital in the range of $100-200M USD to develop these capabilities in-house. Ultimately these are the most cost-effective carbon utilization systems and will be very profitable for installers versus all current and future technologies given the large efficiency advantages

In the past 12 months, Ionomr has generated $3M USD in equity investment from early-stage VCs and angels, and generated $160k USD in revenue entirely related to materials sales.

Ionomr has been significantly supported by Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the BC Innovative Clean Energy funds, the premiere granting organizations for clean technologies in Canada and BC, respectively, who have provided $3.5M USD in total grant funding to date in a successful 2.5-year project. Further support comes from NRC CO2 Materials Challenge, NRC-IRAP, and various Innovate BC programs. The sum total grant funds amount to $2.1M USD in the past 12 months.

Ionomr is seeking to close a financing round in the range of $15-20M USD in equity financing by or before the end of Q1 2021, specifically seeking a lead to price the round and provide a cheque in the range of $4-10M USD. We have identified motivated followers who will take the remaining proportion. This will take Ionomr past breakeven and maximally leverage grant funding and partnerships.

Additionally, the Elevate Prize will enable the two subsidiaries to establish as US companies and raise funds to further progress – for first rounds we would look for motivated early-stage VCs and ‘superangels’ in the biomedical and life science sectors for the antimicrobial spinout, and in impact, climate, and ‘deep-tech’ related funds for the CO2 spinout.

Given that Ionomr has provided compelling initial evidence and an established supply chain, the antimicrobial spinout would seek $10-20M USD to attract an expert team and leverage grant capital, with expert business development personnel, and a scale of materials and capabilities brought on to drive multiple full pilots and design-ins with medical OEMs.

The CO2 spinout raise in the $15-25M USD range, seeking more mature grant funding such as DOE and ARPA-E funds to leverage this funding. This may seem like a large round for this sector and stage, but is necessary for talent acquisition and a fast-as-possible pace of partnership development to limit long design cycles. Proper resourcing enables world impact and the long-term most efficient technology, ours, to win over less-efficient ‘bridge’ technologies.

Ionomr’s estimated expenses are $2.9M USD in 2020. We have runway through May 2021 without significant disruption to our activities. As above, we are seeking to close a financing round of $15-20M USD in or before Q1 2021 or before to take the company past breakeven and maximally leverage grant funding and partnerships. 

I am applying for the Elevate Prize to accelerate the impact of my company through the support provided. Technological challenges and developing supply chains are typically the major barriers in advanced materials, but we’re past the major barriers after substantial effort. The critical areas are magnifying the impact through these new projects and developing the media presence and public awareness to drive adoption and accelerate the renewable energy economy.

The additional, directed capital allows me to launch amazing and impactful project we can’t currently afford to support with the necessary people, equipment, and materials due to the need to be a hyper-focused, lean organization – the status-quo until we get past the design-in industrial pilot scale with a few customers and are no longer resource-limited. However, these will drive material volume and ultimately make all technologies more cost effective.

The even greater challenge that remains is media exposure and public awareness – particularly for customer engagement, but also in the critical needs of attracting government support, ‘deep-tech’ venture capital, and talented employees and advisors. This dovetails with my desire for The Elevate Prize network directly to assist me in finding some of these connections.

We require motivated partners in several areas – on the market and technical side, we seek to partner with large industrial partners willing to commit significant resources to hydrogen technologies, innovative engineering partners in CO2-related technologies for whom we present both an enabling material and excellent connector to large companies who require solutions, and infectious disease & biomedical engineering experts willing to be team members, advisors, and early adopters in deploying our technology for antimicrobial applications in health care and public settings.

I also want to partner with influential people to raise awareness in industry and the general public of the negative environmental and cost impact of PFAS in many technologies, particularly clean technologies, and drive awareness of Ionomr's and other alternatives. 

Finally, the growth of Ionomr and the subsidiary companies requires expert board members to join, and I believe the network will inspire truly exceptional, impactful additions to join.

For hydrogen-related technologies, most of the potential partners I’m seeking are the influencers of long-term strategy and/or climate strategy of large companies related to or requiring hydrogen or CO2 reduction, frequently within organizations we already supply and partner with on a technical basis. These may include large chemical companies such as 3M, BASF, or W.L. Gore; major automotive companies such as GM, Hyundai, Honda, or Toyota; major OEMs such as Cummins, Siemens Energy, or Panasonic.

For CO2 applications we are looking for more innovative engineering labs to partner with, and a closer connection to the MIT Engineering Initiative would be very helpful both in terms of messaging, building a business case for the differentiation Ionomr’s materials bring, as well as that of our own innovations.

In terms of accelerating adoption of our antimicrobial solution, partnership with major OEMs in the medical device space and influential institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts General Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering, or Boston Children’s Hospital would be incredibly helpful.