Born in the technical business incubator of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), a small Brazilian business, Brazil Ozônio, took advantage of the potential of oxygen enriched with filtered water to develop small, portable and low cost devices in different applications. The known high germicidal power of the gas and its use was considered safe in the United States and European countries, but there still weren’t any devices available for different uses on a small scale.
With access to laboratories and minds from the university, the businessman Samy Menasce, founder of the company, used the federal and state development programs which fund scientific and technological investigations to that end.
As such, he developed devices that capture air from the environment and break down the oxygen molecule (O2) with an electrical charge, which is converted into ozone by adding an atom (O3). The gas is applied to water or the material to be treated, in the same way as chlorine, commonly used in the past in these cases, but 100 times more powerful with the advantage of not harming the environment.
Ten years later, and after funding of nearly R$ 5 million, the company is producing 6th generation devices, with more than 3 thousand modular systems installed for uses as varied as cigarette smoke neutralization in hotels to sterilization of surgical materials and treatment of industrial odors and artesian wells.
The technology applied to the cleaning of water contaminated with heavy metals around the uranium mine in Poços de Caldas which fuels the reactors of nuclear plants in Angra 1 and 2, now renders Brazil Ozônio more than R$ 9.6 million in funding from the National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES), administered by the Maritime National Foundation of Brazil.
“Without these development funds, we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are”, stated Menasce. Brazil Ozônio now has 14 employees and R$ 2.4 million in sales in 2014. “For a company like ours, which had only a good idea, being inside the university brought credibility.” Another advantage was the development a product that doesn’t harm the environment. “Our technology is one of the few that is totally clean because our raw material is air and the residue is oxygen,” the businessman said.
Brazil Ozônio is a good example of how the growing demand of the society for products and services connected to the environment draws the attention not only of the clients, but of also ofthe agencies interested in supporting small innovative businesses that stand out in this area. Starting with the Brazilian Small and Medium Business Support Service (Sebrae), one of the supporters of the Center for Technology and Innovative Entrepreneurship (Cietec), an incubator located within the USP.
“The topic of sustainability is strategic for us, not only as a practice, but as a condition for competitiveness”, says Alexandre Ambrosini, sustainability manager at Sebrae National. It is no coincidence that nearly a third of the companies under Cietec develop solutions in the area of environmental technology.
A similar trajectory to Brazil Ozônio is being followed by Umwelt Environmental Biotechnology, a company in Blumenau, in the state of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil, with 30 employees. Umwelt’s specialty (a word meaning environment in German) is the monitoring of the quality of water, waste, sediment and chemical product analysis to determine eco-toxicity.
The company uses as indicators organisms that have a reduced ecological tolerance and show some alteration when exposed to certain pollutants. Among those, a marine bacteria, Vibrio fischeri, which becomes luminescent when in contact with toxic substances. Another one of their innovations is a process of color removal in textile wastewater, which reduces the application of chemical products by as much as 50%. They are currently working on a project to break down grease derived from the refrigeration industry.
Umwelt began in 1996 as a result of research in environmental biotechnology and their motivation was the possibility of using natural resources in the production processes and in the adaptaion of industrial operations to more sustainable practices. “Our products are innovative because there is no benchmarking for them in the national market, and sustainable because they guarantee the reduction of production costs and an improvement in environmental control “, said the managing partner Gerson Zimmer, who also coordinates the area of sustainability in the Catarinense Association of Technological Companies (Acate).
Umwelt has many awards for excellence from the state and federal government in the area of technology and respect for biodiversity and invests around 5% of their sales – numbers which they prefer not to reveal – in research and innovation, a part of which is self-funded and another from grants for researchers and development projects, like the Small Business Support Program, known as Pappe Innovation, funded by the financing body for scientific and technological research of Santa Catarina (Fapesc), and the Ministry of Science and Technology (Finep). They have clients from Paraguay and Argentina, as well as from the Southern and South Eastern regions of the country, mainly in the textile, paper and cellulose and sanitary landfill industries.
An award was the boost Ambievo needed to take off. The soil decontamination company was created four years ago by the businessman Fernando Pecoraro. The company working in the region of Jundiaí, in the state of São Paulo, develops a line of degreasing products, tested in oil , gas, petroleum, using the oil of orange peels, which passes through a chemical process in order to become a super-solvent. Its main function is soil decontamination through a moving process.
The automated plant is placed on a truck dolly to be taken to the contaminated area. One of the advantages is that the solvent doesn’t just restore the soil, it separates the oil so that it can be re-used. “Other than being environmentally friendly, the technology costs a lot less than the traditional method “, says Pecoraro.
With a pipeline of potential projects of around R$ 400 million and 8 employees, the businessman, who does not reveal their sales figures, got the support of Santander Bank, who purchased a 23% stake in the startup through their portfolio focused on sustainable companies; and he attracted a partnership with Haver & Boecker for the manufacturing of equipment.
This year, Ambievo was selected by Launch, an innovation platform signed between the Department of State of the United States, NASA, Nike, and the Agency for International Development (USAID) to identify and promote advanced solutions for a more sustainable world. Pecoraro received the award for the best performance in the advancement of green chemicals.
With the interest awakened in the United States, the businessman sought out Apex-Brazil, the Brazilian Agency of Promotion of Export and Investments, an entity that promotes action to increase competiveness of Brazilian companies in the international market starting with the development of sustainable and innovative characteristics. “We analyse these practices that can still be improved and we help them stand out as competitive differences,” says Adriana Rodrigues, responsible for Sustainability Management for the agency. Ambievo should begin their process of internationalization in 2016 when they open a subsidiary in Miami.
By Martha San Juan França, @marthasanjuanfr
