Commercial airline operators and public transit systems need to help protect the public while maintaining service levels of their high value aircraft and rail cars. Current disinfecting technologies for aircrafts and subway cars are labor intensive and time consuming, but Zeteo Tech is looking to implement its electromagnetically catalyzed decontamination technology (EMCAT) in its proposed automated disinfection system design. The proposed design contains four subsystems that will enable the CFADS to move through a commercial aircraft or public space at the precise speed needed to allow an appropriate amount of spray to contact all essential surfaces and inactivate viruses such as SARS CoV2.

“NSF is proud to support the technology of the future by thinking beyond incremental developments and funding the most creative, impactful ideas across all markets and areas of science and engineering,” said Andrea Belz, Division Director of the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships at NSF. “With the support of our research funds, any deep technology startup or small business can guide basic science into meaningful solutions that address tremendous needs.”

Once a small business is awarded a Phase I SBIR/STTR grant (up to $256,000), it becomes eligible to apply for a Phase II (up to $1,000,000). Small businesses with Phase II funding are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investment or sales.

“Over the last several years, our team has worked to develop and commercialize our EMCAT decontamination technology, and we are honored to earn this recognition and support from NSF,” said Dr. Wayne Bryden, President and CEO of Zeteo Tech. “There is not currently an effective, high-speed and non-corrosive method of decontaminating commercial aircrafts and public transit vehicles available on the market. With the help of the National Science Foundation, we hope to develop an effective, automated solution that can help keep people safer in these crowded public spaces and also help reduce downtime for operators.”

Startups or entrepreneurs who submit a three-page Project Pitch will know within one month if they meet the program’s objectives to support innovative technologies that show promise of commercial and/or societal impact and involve a level of technical risk. Small businesses with innovative science and technology solutions, and commercial potential are encouraged to apply. All proposals submitted to the NSF SBIR/STTR program, also known as America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, undergo a rigorous merit-based review process.

To learn more about Zeteo Tech and its technology, please visit https://zeteotech.com/

To learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, visit: https://seedfund.nsf.gov/

About Zeteo Tech

Zeteo Tech is a venture-backed biodefense and medical device company that has developed a revolutionary new class of fieldable biological mass spectrometers. Its instruments identify airborne microbes, proteins and lipids, and can be used to screen for infectious disease and other bio-threats. Its innovative and patent-pending time of flight mass spectrometry technology, digitalMALDI^®, enables fully automated and near real-time identification of bio-threats in operational environments and dramatically lowers cost-of-ownership relative to the biomolecular reagent-based systems being launched for biodefense applications.

About the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Programs

America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $8.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.