Critical Need for this Technology
Helix Earth Technologies has developed a solid-state (no moving parts), high-efficiency, and low-energy droplet filtration method called Helix MICRA™. The company is using Helix MICRA™ to help revolutionize the way the industry does liquid-gas chemistry. Helix’s unique approach to liquid-gas chemistry is helping enterprises reduce costs, save energy, and reduce their environmental footprint. Helix MICRA™ will revolutionize air conditioning by helping reduce energy use by more than 50% and will revolutionize carbon dioxide capture by reducing the size of carbon dioxide capture system sizes by 6-8x compared to existing capture processes.
Many industries use liquid-gas chemical processes including carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, industrial pollution control, dehumidification, and odor control. These processes reduce the impact of heavy industries on our environment. Unfortunately, the surface area of contact between the liquid and gas limits these process rates. The best way to increase the surface area of contact between a liquid and a gas is to deploy that liquid in a spray of droplets. The challenge with droplets is that once deployed, 100% of them need to be caught to run an effective liquid-gas chemical process. Most filtration methods today either i) are lacking in their capture efficiency, ii) require too much energy to operate, or iii) rely on moving parts to operate and are therefore bulky and suffer from many points of failure.
Supplemental Need for this Technology
Helix Earth Technologies is building a low-energy, high-efficiency filtration method with many potential applications across numerous industries. The filters can help improve efficiency while reducing energy use in applications including industrial mist elimination, aerosolized grease filtration in restaurants, and more.
Competition
- Existing mist elimination companies
- Existing companies in the CO2 capture and sequestration industry
Potential Markets
A multitude of markets that can be addressed by the Helix MICRA™ filters, both in liquid-gas chemistry and filtration. Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration is a market to which its technology can readily apply. The Helix MICRA™ carbon dioxide capture systems have the potential of being 6-8x smaller than existing liquid amine-based absorber columns. In addition to carbon dioxide, Helix MICRA™ filters can enable high-rate, high-efficiency dehumidification for addressing energy use in air conditioning (AC) systems. Globally, AC systems waste > 50% of their energy on latent loads arising from humidity. The Helix MICRA™ platform delivers retrofit dehumidifiers to the AC markets to help reduce AC energy use by more than 50%. Other potential markets in liquid-gas chemistry include industrial particle filtration and control, pollution capture from heavy industry, and odor control.
The Helix MICRA™ filters may also find use in other sectors where droplet filtration is the primary goal, and these sectors can include fog capture, industrial mist elimination, aerosolized grease filtration in restaurants, and others.
Key Innovation
High efficiency, low energy, solid state filtration platform for enabling high-rate liquid-gas chemical processes.
R&D Status of Project
Helix’s liquid-gas chemical processes are at technology readiness level (TRL) 4. The company has an initial lab-scale proof of concept for the carbon dioxide capture system demonstrating the use of a liquid-amine spray system and Helix MICRA™ filters. In addition to lab-scale demonstrations of carbon dioxide capture, Helix also has lab-scale systems for dehumidification, which can be reduce latent loads on air conditioning systems.
Team Overview
Rawand Rasheed, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-Founder: Rawand Rasheed holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. He has over five years of experience at the NASA Johnson Space Center as a research fellow and life support systems engineer. He developed an innovative new filtration method for firefighting in space while working on manned spaceflight at NASA. Rasheed discovered he could bring his new filtration technology to Earth to help save billions of dollars while also helping save the planet by decarbonizing heavy industries and the built environment. He received a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship and a Department of Energy (DOE) Innovation in Buildings (IBUILD) fellowship.
Brad Husick, Chief Business Officer (CBO) and Co-Founder: Husick began his innovation journey in Silicon Valley after working for Apple and HP, where he co-founded three highly successful technology companies (sale, IPO, privately held $1.5B) and early-entered one company (IPO, $9B peak market cap) in his career. Husick’s interest in the environment ignited when he worked for The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit removing plastic from the world’s oceans and rivers. He brings his extensive experience in startups, product marketing, business development, marketing, sales, industry standards, and operations to Helix Earth Technologies.
Technology Profile
Status: Lab-scale demonstration -TRL4
Primary industry: Carbon Dioxide Capture and HVAC
Category (i.e. tech keywords): Carbon dioxide, liquid amines, filtration, liquid-gas chemistry, process intensification, dehumidification, energy efficiency
Estimated annual revenue: NA
Employees: 4
Social challenge: To decarbonize heavy industries that are resistant to change!
R&D commercial collaborator: NA
