Federal R&D Programs Lift Small Firms

Funding for high-risk, early-stage R&D helps fledgling businesses overcome technical hurdles.

Article by Andrea Widener Franchessa | Chemical & Engineering News | March 14, 2016 | Vol. 94 Issue 11

Sayler was a chemistry graduate student at the University of Alabama when a staff scientist there asked her to analyze a catalyst that kept failing to speed a reaction.

After doing some research, she got back to him. “I said, ‘This stuff is horrible,’ ” she remembers. He told Sayler if she could make something better, “people will be banging down your door to get it.”

Sayler took on that challenge and developed a better catalyst. Now she’s chief executive officer of a small business, ThruPore Technologies, which she cofounded with her adviser, Alabama chemistry professor Martin Bakker. They are working to move that catalyst from the lab to the marketplace with support from a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation.

SBIR and its smaller sister program, Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), support research at thousands of U.S. companies—including chemical start-ups— every year. The goal is to give companies the funds they need to turn their technology into a commercial product ...

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