Appendix A: SBIR Success Stories
In Appendix A:
SBIR Program
Commercialization
Success Stories.............A-1
SBIR Phase III Success Stories...............A-6
SBIR Program Commercialization Success Stories
The companies featured in this Appendix have successfully transitioned their ideas into revenue-generating products. Their success stories represent just a small part of the return on EPA’s SBIR investment. The Agency applauds the success of these firms, as well as the other participants in EPA's SBIR Program.
ENOX Technologies, Inc.
ENOX Technologies, Inc., in Natick, MA, has developed a plasma combustion ignition system that assures ignition stability and complete combustion in lean-burn engines. The patented INOx system significantly lowers combustion temperature, improves engine efficiency, reduces nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, extends engine life, and reduces required engine maintenance. The INOx system is able to ignite very lean air/fuel ratios in an open chamber cylinder design, with no engine modification or tear down. The technology produces a continuous electrical discharge at the gap of a conventional spark plug for any desired number of degrees of engine rotation. The energy delivered ensures that combustion will occur even at the leanest conditions.
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Environmental Significance. The INOx system enhances engine performance and extends engine life. In addition, the maintenance and energy costs associated with the technology are a fraction of those required for competing technologies. The INOx
system routinely reduces NOx emissions to under 3.0 g/hp hr at rated engine load with little or no sacrifice in fuel efficiency. (Installation of the INOx ignition system results in a 40 to 90 percent drop in NOx emissions.) This brings NOx
emissions within virtually all state emission limits.
Conventional technology needed to meet CAAA requirements was costing as much as $750,000. The INOx system costs only $40,000 to $102,000 and can be installed quickly because it requires no modification of the engine's head.
Impact of Commercialization. ENOX has successfully retrofitted over 100 engines with its patented INOx technology. In 1995, the INOx ignition system was placed among "the most technologically significant new products" in the world when ENOX received the prestigious R&D 100 Award. The company’s success with INOx was again recognized in
