ABS materials, the company founded by Associate Professor of Chemistry Paul Edmiston, has received a $250,000 venture grant from JumpStart, which is a Cleveland-based state-funded group that encourages the development of new Ohio technologies. The investment, which is part of a larger $2.4 million capital raise for ABS, will be used to hire additional chemists and increase production of water treatment and purification technologies based on the Collegeís patented Osorb molecule.
ìThe JumpStart is not a grant, itís actually an investment,” said Edmiston. ìTheyíre giving the company money in return for equity ó in other words, stock in the company.† Itís part of a larger equity raise to upgrade the manufacturing capabilities for the Osorb for a number of pilot projects that are starting here in 2010 and, in addition, to hire qualified people to help in the manufacturing process.”
Edmiston founded ABS, originally Absorbent Materials Company, in 2008 after his career took an unexpected turn.† In 2005, while investigating different kinds of glasses for use in bomb detection, Edmiston and his students accidentally discovered a glass molecule with an incredible property: it absorbs organic materials on contact, swelling up to eight times its volume and absorbing 10,000 times its own weight.† More notably, unlike any similar material yet discovered, the process is reversible, allowing the same Osorb to be used over and over again, rather than disposed of with the contaminants.
The College now holds the patent on the material and has licensed it for commercial use to ABS, where Edmiston serves as Chief Science Officer.
ìIntel came out of Grinell […]. Alcoa came out of Oberlin ó an undergraduate out of Oberlin discovered how to make aluminum. Google came out of Stanford. A lot of really high-tech technology companies come out of […] academia, because thatís where thereís basic research going on. So this is actually incredibly typical,” said Edmiston.
This fairly standard relationship is beneficial to all parties ó the College gets increased visibility and a portion of the proceeds from ABSís commercial applications, ABS and Edmiston have the chance to market a ground-breaking technology and everyone, hopefully, gets more easily and cost-effectively cleaned water. The benefit to the College is also educational.
ìStudents can get involved in this, so thereís an educational component to it all. The research is ongoing and [so is] the knowledge Iím gaining, which I can pass back to the students,” said Edmiston. ìThree of my five students are working on advanced characteristics of this for primarily third-world water purification technologies.” Edmiston added that students could ìvery likely” go on to be hired by ABS after graduation.
Even as ABS pilots applications for the technology across the country (Edmiston estimates worldwide applications by 2011), Edmiston is dealing with an ever-growing flood of media attention.† A few weeks ago he was honored by Governor Ted Strickland for being a ìTop Ohio Innovator.”† In a few weeks, a cable news special about Edmistonís work will air.
Describing himself as an ìaccidental entrepreneur,” Edmiston seems a little overwhelmed by all the attention. Although he has actually lost money on the start-up so far, he has no doubt the research and development of Osorb will pay off in the end.
ìHopefully it can be really beneficial to the environment,” he said. ìAs soon as I figured out what it could do, I thought ëGeez, this is exactly what the world needed in terms of water treatment.í So it will be interesting to see where it ends up. I canít say itís been an easy path, but itís been fun, and hopefully itíll be useful, so instead of lying on a paper somewhere in a lab, as a secret, its actually a useful tool.”