Four life-changing ideas that could transform the world around us have been named winners of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s tenth Emerging Technologies Competition.
Winning big at the event held on July 7 were:
- Enabling Technologies: Alivion AG - Methanol poisoning causes blindness or even death. Yet, methanol detectors for diagnosis by breath analysis or screening of beverages are not available. Here, a handheld, nanostructured sensor is presented for highly selective methanol detection in less than two minutes. This device enables on-site analyses by distillers, authorities and health professionals.
- Energy: Porous Liquid Technologies - Porous Liquid Technologies is a unique technology enabling ultra-efficient CO2 capture by combining low-cost, readily available porous liquids and solids to create an easily recyclable/regenerable liquid, with high CO2 capacity. These liquids display huge cost advantages and thermal stability over current technology. Physisorbed gas can be released at low energy by a simple temperature/pressure swing.
- Environment: Low Sulphur Fuels - LSF has developed a unique chemical recycling process to convert used hydrocarbon containing feedstocks and produce circular outputs that can be used to make new plastics, rubbers, chemicals and other industrial products.
- Health: MetalloBio Limited - MetalloBio has developed a novel ruthenium platform technology with application potential as a systemic antibiotic and as a coating for medical devices. The compounds that underpin the platform are more active than clinical antibiotics, have a novel multi-modal mechanism of action, little-no-emergence of resistance and represent a new antimicrobial class.
To do so, they had to convince a panel of industry heavyweights from some of the most famous companies in the world that their innovations could tackle societal, environmental and economic challenges facing the world today.
The winners share £160,000 of no-strings funding and support to accelerate and grow their businesses.
Dr Helen Pain, CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “This year’s Emerging Technologies Competition is perhaps the most important yet. Now, perhaps more than at any point in recent years, we need to encourage dynamic, innovative companies to chase their ambitions and turn their ideas into successful businesses.
“This is the tenth time that we have held the Emerging Technologies Competition, celebrating cutting-edge technologies and innovations that truly are tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems.
“If it were needed, the astonishing standard of the finalists and the incredibly difficult job the judges had picking winners, provided further evidence that chemical science’s industry is thriving and continuing to find incredible new ways to help society and drive economic growth.”
Held on Thursday, July 7, the event saw 23 finalists come together for the final, which has been designed to celebrate and recognise the role of chemistry in solving problems across the world – and how crucial it is to create companies that deliver sustained benefit to the economy.
The internationally renowned panel of judges included representation from organisations such as AstraZeneca, Boots, bp, Croda, Johnson Matthew, PETRONAS, Reckitt Benckiser, Scott Bader and Unilever. After an initial application process, finalists were invited to pitch their innovations to the panel before the winners were decided.
The competition showcases some of the most promising chemistry applications across four core categories. This year, entrants represented a range of proposals from tech innovators, start-ups and spin-outs.
Each winner gains £20,000 prize money, as well as specifically assigned co-mentors and a further £20,000 available as a business acceleration grant.
Dr Andreas Güntner, CEO of Alivion AG, winner of the Enabling Technologies category, said: “This award is amazing for us. It’s a great honour and recognition for the whole team and we look forward to pushing our technology further.
“The Emerging Technologies Competition is a great opportunity from the Royal Society of Chemistry because it really recognises young start-ups and supports them in this very tough process of innovation forming and product development.”
Professor Stuart James, Co-Founder of Porous Liquid Technologies, and winner of the Energy category said: “It has been absolutely brilliant. Even before we found out we had won this has been an incredibly positive experience. Chatting to people here and getting feedback on how we’re positioning ourselves was really helpful.”
Glenn Halliday, Co-Founder and COO of Low Sulphur Fuels, winner of the Environment category, said: “The opportunity to engage with the Royal Society of Chemistry has allowed us to sharpen our offering and to get exposure to an audience that we found difficult to reach – chemical people, chemical investors, chemical customers – so that’s been extremely valuable.
“This endorsement will really support our electrochemical process because it is radical and different. It will help, we hope, customers and investors, to understand our capabilities and the scope and scale for the future.”
Kirsty Smitten, CEO of MetalloBio Limited, winner of the Health category, said: “I’m really happy. There was a lot of good tech out there today and a lot of large pharmaceutical companies on the panel. Apparently, it was a unanimous decision. I think that really validates the tech.
“Here you meet like-minded people, which really helps. Also talking to the people on the panel is obviously helpful and they’ve given me lots of tips about where I can go forward.”
The competition provides a unique platform for innovators to engage with and learn from these large multinational partners and judges to raise awareness and gain industry validation for their innovations.
Since the Emerging Technologies Competition began in 2013, finalists and winners have gone on to raise £775million in grant and equity funding. One winner has since been acquired for £28m, one of the competition's finalists was acquired for £623m, and another has since raised a $350m IPO on the US Nasdaq.
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