Vaperma Inc.
Hollow fiber membranes for industrial gas separation.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
| N/A | $17.2m | Series B | |
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Vaperma Inc. specialized in developing and manufacturing advanced hollow fiber polymeric membranes for gas separation, vapor permeation, and dehydration processes. The company's core technology, the Siftek™ membrane, was designed for the highly selective separation of water from various gas mixtures and organic vapors, finding a primary application in the fuel ethanol production industry. This technology offered an alternative to conventional ethanol dehydration methods by providing a more energy-efficient process that lowered both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Siftek™ membrane module contained thousands of hollow polymer fibers that allowed water vapor to permeate through while retaining the ethanol, resulting in a fuel-grade ethanol product with up to 99% purity. Vaperma's systems were developed for biofuel refining and natural gas purification. The company targeted ethanol producers in North America and Brazil as its primary market. In March 2009, Vaperma entered into an agreement with Honeywell's UOP unit to jointly offer the Siftek™ technology, aiming to improve the viability of both first-generation and second-generation cellulosic ethanol production.
Keywords: hollow fiber membranes, gas separation, vapor permeation, ethanol dehydration, polymeric membrane, Siftek, biofuel refining, natural gas purification, clean technology, water vapor separation