PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) have become a major environmental concern. These chemicals, used in various industrial and consumer products for their heat, oil, stain, grease, and water-resistant properties, have infiltrated our food and water supplies. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that 97% of Americans have PFAS in their bodies. While the full impact on human health is not yet clear, animal studies suggest potential risks to growth, development, reproduction, and various bodily functions, including thyroid, liver, and immune system. This widespread presence and potential health effects underscore the urgency of addressing PFAS contamination.
Enter Enspired Solutions, an East Lansing-based startup founded by two visionary women: Dr. Denise Kay and Dr. Meng Wang. Their mission? To eliminate PFAS from our environment using groundbreaking technology.
From the lab to the marketplace
Kay, who earned her Ph.D. from the Michigan State University (MSU) Institute of Environmental Toxicology, noticed the growing concern about PFAS over a decade ago. “About 10 or 12 years ago, I began to see PFAS mentioned and written about more and more as something that could be a contaminant of concern in the future.”
At the time, Kay was working for a national environmental consulting company when her colleague, Wang, read about a chemistry patented by Nanjing University in China that “we felt was very elegant and successful at destroying PFAS in water,” Kay says.
“Successful” because the technology destroys toxic PFAS in waste and “elegant” because it returns them to nontoxic molecular components without the need for offsite disposal, Kay explains.
“We asked them, ‘Has anybody commercialized it yet,'” Kay recounts, “and the authors said, ‘No, we’re waiting for someone to license it.'”
Seizing the opportunity, Kay and Wang founded Enspired Solutions in 2021, securing a license for their flagship technology, dubbed the PFASigator™, to specialize in PFAS remediation.
MSU’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
The pair sought to rent lab space at the MSU Research Foundation’s Van Camp Incubator, a collaborative space for emerging companies and researcher groups in the Greater Lansing region.
“Little did I know when I rented lab space there that it would connect us to this whole network of resources,” Kay says.
Brad Fingland, director of venture creation at the MSU Research Foundation, agrees. “I think she had little idea about who we were initially. But by engaging with the incubator, that was her entry point into all the things that happened downstream.”
“We plugged them into state agencies – people that have resources to help small businesses, like the SBDC,” says Fingland. “We introduced them to funding sources within the state, business accelerator funds – a lot of different groups. And it was through that engagement that we started having more in-depth conversations about what they ultimately want to do with the company. How do they want to build a business? And we helped them build out strategies for how to get there.”
Says Kay: “They have been fantastic in terms of linking us with small business development support both directly through the Foundation and with its capital investment arms, Red Cedar Ventures and Michigan Rise. All those things have been really critical to us in actually getting the business off the ground.”
The startup’s relationship with MSU Research Foundation led to other opportunities within MSU’s Entrepreneurial ecosystem, including opportunities for an exclusive license for complementary technology developed by Dr. Hui Li, Professor of Environmental Soil Chemistry at MSU’s Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences. The Foundation also provided dedicated mentorship through Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIRs) and facilitated connections that helped the company add new team members.
MSU developed technology a perfect compliment
“Enspired Solutions was a little unusual because they were started up shortly before we did the license,” remembers Tom Herlache, technology manager/assistant director for commercialization at MSU Technologies, the technology transfer office of MSU.
“In the early launch phase when I started working with them, they had been set up at the Van Camp Incubator, and Red Cedar Ventures had already given them an initial investment,” Herlache says.
“Normally, we would be marketing the technology to prospective licensees, trying to find somebody who needs the tech. However, after the Foundation’s introduction to us, I knew we had a technology developed at MSU in the lab of Prof. Hui Li that was highly compatible. The two technologies really complement each other, and Prof. Li’s technology provides a lot of options for Enspired Solutions to work with. So, my role was to develop a license that fits their business practices, ensuring the terms and conditions align with what they’re doing.”
“The exclusive license Enspired Solutions established with MSUT supports a robust patent portfolio that includes chemistry backed by a US research institute. This gives the founders and investors confidence that Enspired Solutions will be differentiated as an innovative and unique approach that can obtain a significant share of the PFAS destruction market,” says Herlache. He adds, “They’re moving really quickly. They’ve done some successful demonstration projects. They’ve won a few early contracts for their PFASigator™. They’ve done a good job of breaking into that market space.”
The company secured investments from Red Cedar Ventures, the Foundation’s venture capital arm. Jeff Wesley, executive director of Red Cedar Ventures, praises the team’s progress: “Enspired Solutions earned additional investment because we were so impressed with the progress of the company, its leadership team, and their continuing effort to hit important milestones in their business growth.”
Wesley also serves on the Enspired Solutions Board of Directors. He actively collaborated with the company and investors, with Red Cedar Ventures co-leading their funding round.
Technology that is safe, effective, reliable, and cheap
Kay explains the science behind their approach: “The carbon-fluorine bonds that make up PFAS are the strongest single bond that exists in nature. This bond is the reason PFAS do not degrade naturally in the environment. The chemistry targets specifically those carbon-fluorine bonds and breaks them, and then the rest of the molecule comes apart.”
“Our technology is referred to as photo-activated reductive defluorination, or PRD,” says Kay. “It’s a new technology for destroying PFAS that has not been applied in the past to other chemicals in that it’s directed towards the destruction of PFAS. Most older technologies destroy contaminants by applying a lot of energy and destroying anything in the solution, whereas our chemistry is much more efficient by directing the energy input directly towards breaking the carbon-fluorine bonds in the PFAS.”
Dr. Wang emphasizes the practicality of their solution: “Our technology is safe, effective, reliable — and it is cheap.”
A future of cleaner water thanks to Enspired Solutions
As PFAS regulations become more stringent, Dr. Wang sees a bright future for Enspired Solutions: “This technology is mature enough to be implemented right now. We just need time to prove to clients that it is effective, it is reliable, and it is inexpensive: ‘Here is the solution that you can really use.'”
“It has taken years for momentum to build to clean up PFAS,” says MSUT’s Herlache. “And I’m glad that Enspired Solutions is out there beginning to do that. We live on the Great Lakes, and water is a hugely important resource for us. Getting it clean is really important work.”
For Dr. Kay, the impact of their work is profoundly satisfying: “We actually reduced the amount of PFAS that exists on this earth. I saw that we could do something that, within five or 10 years, could have a measurable, significant impact on environmental contamination. That is tremendously satisfying.”
About the MSU Innovation Center:
The MSU Innovation Center is dedicated to fostering innovation, research commercialization, and entrepreneurial activities from the research and discovery happening across our campus every day. We act as the primary interface for researchers aiming to see their research applied to solving real-world problems and making the world a better place to live. We aim to empower faculty, researchers, and students within our community of scholars by providing them with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to bring their discoveries to the forefront.
Through strategic collaborations with the private sector, we aim to amplify the impact of faculty research and drive economic growth while positively impacting society. We foster mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with the private sector through corporate-sponsored research collaborations, technology licensing discussions, and support for faculty entrepreneurs to support the establishment of startup companies.
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