Endless Topical Antiseptic Dispenser

Currently medical clinics, hospitals, dental offices, stores and public spaces are running out of topical antiseptic and hand sanitizer at their dispenser stations located within their sites and facilities. This is occurring due to the recent media attention brought forth by the Coronavirus and the public’s increased awareness of individual hygiene to reduce spread of pathogens.

Our proposed novel solution of a topical antiseptic dispenser that never runs out is enabled by combining a material science electrochemical carbon nanospike catalyst breakthrough for ethyl alcohol and water production. Deployed via kiosk sized touchless dispenser that integrates  carbon dioxide and water vapor capture system. The IoT enabled dispenser device also logs temperature, dispenses additives, facial recognition and smartphone, per site requirements.

Our solution will positively and globally change lives by providing the world’s first economically accessible endless sanitizer to reduce the spread of pathogens, increase hygiene and capture and convert carbon dioxide.

We are specifically solving the problems of individual hygiene, data to analyze and tools to support and protect healthcare workers. Our initial focus is within the communities we work in U.S. to ensure a ruggedized low cost accessible mass manufacturable endless topical antiseptic product as we progress through technology maturation with our prototypes. Upon activating  manufacturing line in 2021-2022 we will then shift to global deployment through network of existing organizations that have inquired regarding our novel carbon nanospike enabled ethyl alcohol material science work as well as utilizing our platform at safetyspot.com for health, safety and environmental best practices for organizational and community health and safety. Our endless topical antiseptic touchless dispensing solution structurally addresses current system supply chain vulnerabilities by distributed production of topical antiseptic, enhanced disease surveillance with temperature monitor and enhanced health care supply chains by deployment within medical facilities and points of distribution for community members. We estimate the problem will be economically solved with our endless sanitizer dispensers priced at price $350 that can produce on-average 1 litre per day of 80 vol% EtOH accessible through  safetyspot platform for on-grid and off-grid dispensing of sanitizer along with temperature sensing and integrated data analytics.

Our proposed novel solution of a hand sanitizer dispenser that never runs out produces hand sanitizer by pulling carbon dioxide and water vapor from air, then reacting it across a novel non-precious metal electrochemical catalyst to produce ethyl alcohol in water. 

Workflow Example:

1. You walk-up to the dispenser, place your hand under it and the infrared sensors activates ethyl alcohol spray dispensing per World Health Organization (WHO) recommended blend. 

2. While you're getting the sanitizer it's logging your temperature, reading any NFC device that you have for data analysis and performing facial recognition. 

3. You get sanitizer, the facility gains data on number of people sanitizing their hands, data on the health of their community and situational awareness on people in their community and their real-time health. 

Personal hygiene benefit for community members that want one of these for their home or residence: people can simply scan the QR code on the dispenser and request details about having a smaller consumer scale dispenser shipped to their home that enables refilling of small pocket sized sanitizer. 

Our work has the potential to be the world's largest network of carbon capture devices for individual hygiene, data and protection of health workers. 

Market Opportunity: Our total addressable market comprises all stores, public facilities and medical centers where hand sanitizer is utilized, representing $1.8 billion. However, our initial addressable market is focused on universities, medical centers, dental clinics and hospitals where hand sanitizer stations are located in hundreds of locations that can and do run out. Based upon our site discussions with medical professionals we have located test sites for our electrochemical based alcohol hand sanitizer dispenser. 

We have completed 27 interviews per the National Science Foundation I-Corps customer discovery framework, which involves ethnographic interviews to identify unknown unknowns. We have completed NSF I-Corps sites program. We have obtained letters of support from medical professionals that own and operator their own clinics, we have received letters of support from utilities that manage tens of thousands of employees and support communities with millions of citizens.  

The near-term commercial focus of our technical project proposed is to locate several “breadboard” type prototypes developed through national leading clean tech incubators and medical facilities to receive feedback directly from facilities managers,  health/safety/risk/environmental managers and end-users of our new and innovative hand sanitizer stations that never run out.   

We have submitted NSF SBIR Phase 1 for prototyping.

The problems of individual hygiene, acquiring data, analyzing data and tools to support and protect health workers are directly addressed with our novel endless topical antiseptic solution. We directly address pandemic security, reduce impacts that climate change is having on current supply chain vulnerabilities and enhance disease surveillance systems. With IoT sensor connectivity we engage community members and the public through our enhanced health care supply chain for topical antiseptic. Our solution addresses all problems required to be solved as part of this health security and pandemic challenge through distributed chemical production that has been sustainable integrated and intensified.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) originally reported the discovery of carbon nanospikes (CNS) in 2014,  a unique morphologycomprising 50-80 nm atomically sharp spikes grown using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD). Due to the atomically sharp texture CNS are able to electrochemically reduce molecules including CO2 and can generate ethanol when paired metallic co-catalyst copper.

In 2016 thru 2017 Reactwell began interacting with ORNL based upon publications of the carbon nanospike and in 2019 was awarded global exclusive license to commercialize the basic science. Based upon our team’s work to-date the synthesis of the carbon nanospike under target conditions requires further research and development (R&D) in order to maximize yield, selectivity and catalyst lifetime, which to-date has been recorded at 300 hours of runtime, but limited by instrumentation and lab resource required to run longer. Catalyst synthesis repeatability is also a significant technology risk that needs to be addressed with further research and development.

Our proposed novel solution of a hand sanitizer dispenser that never runs out should be achieved by combining an improved electrochemical carbon nanospike catalyst with copper for ethanol production into a chemical processing unit that is fed by a carbon dioxide capture system and water vapor capture system. Then, the production of ethanol for hand sanitizer dispenser stations will only be limited by the available carbon dioxide and water in air. Electrochemical cells run off of DC, which is available via rectifiers connected to AC outlets, a common practice utilized by laptop and cell phone chargers.

Direct Air Capture & Conversion (DACC) technologies present several unique challenges that must be addressed. The most significant challenge comes from the low atmospheric concentration of CO2 (currently 415 ppm) compared to CCU point source carbon dioxide capture, thereby requiring sorbents with strong and selective CO2 binding. Historically, the development of CCU Point Source and DAC have been developing separate technology roadmaps that diverge, therefore creating inefficiencies in manufacturing during scale-up. 

Another challenge due to the low CO2 concentration is the slow mass transfer of CO2 into the sorbent, thereby requiring a large air-sorbent interfacial area. Furthermore, the regeneration often rely on energy intense processes which can have high carbon footprints. Finally, repeated CO2 binding/release cycles expose the sorbents to large amounts of air and moisture, and wide temperature variations, which can lead to sorbent degradation and reduced performance. Further, non-precious metal based catalysts that can run off of electricity for 300+ hours to produce ethyl alcohol at high yield, selectivity and efficiency are required. 

Our work on direct air capture of carbon dioxide sorbent materials for small form factor combined with our team's carbon nanospike electrochemical catalyst work and systems integration for carbon dioxide capture, atmospheric water capture and subsequent conversion of carbon dioxide and water into ethyl alcohol in water addresses the technology gap that has historically limited the deployment of a low cost high reliability distributed topical antiseptic dispenser that can be plugged into a standard wall outlet and produce 1 liter per day of ethyl alcohol. 

Material Science Innovation References & Evidence that this technology works:

1. https://www.rdworldonline.com/rd100/voltanol-electrochemical-conversion-of-carbon-dioxide-to-ethanol/
2. Song, Y., et al., ChemistrySelect (2016) 1 (19), 6055
3. Song, Y., et al., Science Advances (2018) 4 (4)
4. Rondinone, A. J., and Huang, J., Nature Catalysis (2018)  
5. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/interviews/a23472/co2-ethanol-interview/
6. https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/06-RONDINONE.pdf

IoT Platform References & Evidence that this technology works:
7. https://engine.safeytspot.com
8. https://greentown.safetyspot.c...
9. https://virginia.safetyspot.co...
10. https://deinnovates.safetyspot...
11. https://yale.safetyspot.com
12. https://duke.safetyspot.com
13. https://odu.safetyspot.com
14. https://wustl.safetyspot.com
15. https://rice.safetyspot.com
16. https://marquette.safetyspot.c...
17. https://laci.safetyspot.com
18. https://berkeley.safetyspot.co...
19. https://ucdavis.safetyspot.com
20. https://mtl-mit-edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/pipermail/...

People discuss theory of change. Here is my perspective "Inflection points in change, e.g. disruption, is a specific combinatorics solution, technically and economically solved, given technology arbitrage availability enabled by market adoption for a specific industry with lower barriers to entry at a point in time."

Therefore applying theory of change framework transformed for market inflection points to our endless sanitizer solution results in the activity of refilling dispenser stations requiring labor and associated costs as well as user experience of touching a sanitizer dispenser that is out only to have an even ickier feeling than before touching a surface that countless other hands with pathogens have touched before you. Based upon the key guttural reactions felt by consumers of hand sanitizer as well as facility managers, health safety and environmental managers our endless topical antiseptic sanitizer dispenser address the current key pain points. Based upon our 27 interviews, our prototype is being built to address the feedback to-date. Then our prototype will be deployed at facilities for real-world feedback on user experience from community member as well as organizations responsible for the interaction and use of the dispensers for their workforce and community safety. Our immediate output is a prototype. our immediate activity is monitoring the use of the prototype from end-user consumer and end-user business perspectives. Then based upon iterative/cycles of activities and outputs, position the work for a repetitive successful outcome that requires minimal effort such that the pilot knowledge learned with direct feedback enables a successful scaleup for activation of our manufacturing line, order fulfillment and community support. 

Our workflow process is as follows:

1. Identify problem
2. Interview 27+ people to confirm problem is a real problem they are willing and able to pay for
3. Continue securing IP rights
4. Build prototype
5. Test prototype in lab, then in real world environment with support to fix it when it breaks
6. Iterate (10-20 prototype versions) cycling between activity, output and outcome with key performance metrics
7. Activate manufacturing line
8. Activate fulfillment for orders
9. Activate customer support for new product line
10. Activate service center for repairs when required

Our software currently serves hundreds of thousands of people. Our prototype endless topical antiseptic dispenser currently serves (2) labs, one of which is paused due to COVID-19. Therefore, we have (1) active site with solution as of today. 

Number Dispenser Stations

Current number serving with our prototype = 1

Number of dispenser sites to serve in one year = 100

Number of dispenser sites we will be serving in 5 years  = 1,000,000
basis: year 0:1, year 1:100, year 2:1,000, year 3:10,000, year 4:100,000, year 5:1,000,000

Number of People Meaningfully Affected:

Constants: 1 dispenser impacts 1000 people per month, 12 months in a year

year 1 = 100 sites * 1000 * 12 = 1,200,000 people sanitized

year 2 = 1,000 sites * 1000 * 12 = 12,000,000 people sanitized

year 3 = 10,000 sites * 1000 * 12 = 120,000,000 people sanitized

year 4 = 100,000 sites * 1000 * 12 = 1,200,000,000 people sanitized

year 5 = year 1 + year 2 + year 3 + year 4 = 1,33,200,000 people sanitized

Note, each person that receives sanitizer may not be unique person, we can validate this with computer vision database in historicals, but not in forecast.

Tools to support and protect health workers goal:

Goal within next year is to have 100 prototypes built and working at 10 sites.

Goal within next five years is to have active manufacturing line and over 100,000 sites active with our endless sanitizer solution for both facility point of dispensing as well as residential units, which represents over 1,000,000,000 people sanitized by our novel and endless sanitizer dispenser solution.

Note: this goal enhances health care supply chains, enhances disease surveillance system and addresses current system supply chain vulnerabilities.

Climate Change Goal for Individual Hygiene:

Goal within next year is to have 10 prototypes built for residential consumer evaluation. Within next 5 years sequester 1 mega ton of carbon dioxide to impact global carbon dioxide emissions with a distributed solution that impacts climate and human health by converting a liability into an asset on a global basis driven by pure market force economics. 

Note: this goal enhances individual hygiene, enhances disease surveillance system and addresses current system supply chain vulnerabilities.

Analyzing data goal: 

Within 1 year provide dataset for topical antiseptic dispenser usage within a single facility along with temperature of community members.

Within 5 years provide dataset of topical antiseptic usage and temperature survey data such that impact of sanitizer utilized to reduce pathogen spread can be overlaid with macro level health system data. 

Note: this goal enhances disease surveillance system and addresses current system supply chain vulnerabilities.

Barriers in the next year comprise funding gap to support prototype site deployments. We have submitted NSF SBIR Phase 1 to address this gap, but welcome additional funding mechanism suggestions and opportunities. Note, in June 2020 our team was awarded $1.5mm DOE OTT TCF-2 grant for our carbon dioxide capture and conversion work. 

Barriers in the next five years comprise funding gaps, distribution and manufacturing capacity gaps as well as legal considerations for global sales and trade. 

We plan to overcome these capital barriers by persistent grant submittals, monitoring our grant dashboard, continuing to build and improve our hardware prototype and software based upon community feedback. 

We plan to overcome the distribution barrier, by continuing to build our global safetyspot site community. Each site we add onboards ~ tens of thousands of users as our focus is on universities currently and associated medical complexes that they are responsible for managing. 

Full-time staff = 4

Part-time staff = 7

In 2017 our safetyspot project was formally spun-out of Reactwell into a stand alone entity Safety Spot Inc. In 2019 we activated manufacturing line for our IoT hardware device, Equipment Energizer. 

In 2019 Reactwell team received R&D100 Award for its’ commercialization work on Voltanol as well as 2020 FLC National Impact Award. 

Yang Song is the Chief Science Officer for Reactwell, LLC, and leads the electrochemical commercialization efforts, which resulted in an R&D100 award. Yang is coinventor of the carbon nanospike catalyst and a former postdoctoral associate and staff member at ORNL. He is an expert electrochemist with more than 5yrs experience in CO2 electroreduction and related technologies and 10yrs experience in nanomaterials for electrocatalysis.

Brandon Iglesias, founder, Chem.E./ECS with industry & prototyping experience has received U.S. Small Business of the Week award, received NSF I-Corps Sites grant as entrepreneur lead, received New Zealand Edmund Hillary Fellowship, received Kauffman Foundation Global Scholarship and R&D100 Award.

Thomas Harris is a mechanical engineer with medical device manufacturing experience and a graduate of Caltech Mechanical Engineering. 

Jose Vega is a civil engineer with programming experience focused on IoT platform safetyspot.com for software and hardware communications and data analytics. Jose graduated from University of New Orleans.

Karyn Menzies, our team's writer for safetyspot tutorials and content, is based out of New Orleans with film and scripting experience. 

Matthew Desmond, M.D., Clinical Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, who studied chemical engineering in undergraduate with Brandon Iglesias. Now employed at Keck School of Medicine of USC. 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Advice and access to analytical equipment will be provided through a DOE User Agreement: ORNL hosts the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a DOE Office of Science user facility with world-class capabilities on materials science research. Reactwell has user agreement with CNMS, which provides access to SEM/TEM and required analytical equipment and personnel as well as active TCF-2 maturation work.

Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM)

Development, testing, and characterization of advanced materials require specialized tools, and JIAM’s laboratories are equipped with an extensive collection of leading-edge technologies. Among them are two new state-of the-art electron microscopes: transmission electron microscope ion-beam scanning electron microscope. 

New Orleans Bioinnovation Center
Empowers Louisiana innovators to create successful biotech and medical businesses by providing them with access to premier facilities, and a comprehensive support network. Provided our team with a letter of support for NSF SBIR Phase1 grant application.

Greentown Labs
Leading hub where people from all over the world congregate to work toward the shared goal of a sustainable, renewable future. Provided our team with a letter of support for NSF SBIR Phase1 grant application.

Advanced Prototyping Center (APC) at La Kretz Innovation Campus (LKIC): Our  membership in Los Angeles at the Advanced Prototyping Center provides us vertical mills, horizontal turning lathes, water jet, laser cutters, welding shop, metal shop, robotics shop, electronics lab, textile lab, wet laboratory, core laboratory, computer simulation laboratory, and dedicated assembly space to facilitate reducing basic science to applied science for experimentation. 

Our Safety Spot business model (b2b) is a product as a service that charges $25 per endless sanitizer dispenser per month as an IoT connected device. In addition to product as a service model for IoT device, consumables may be purchased as well. For example, scent and bitter additives for topical antiseptic dispenser or glycerin for skin hydration via dispensing points. We charge a support fee and enterprise integration fees. Our software is available free of charge to nonprofits and educationally focused organizations. We also have a content channel, Safety Memos, where the basic content is available free of charge, but advanced content is for a fee. 

Our (b2c) business model will involve one time point of sale for topical antiseptic with online subscription available for additives. 

Our (b2i) business model will involve enterprise level accounts that services an entire corporate global business with distributed IoT and associated volume based pricing and dedicated support staff.

Our carbon nanospike freedom to operate and material for use in our endless sanitizer dispenser is provided via sublicense from Reactwell, L.L.C. 

Our software is made available free to organizations focused on education and social mission to lift up others. 

Each time an enterprise site signs up with our service for endless sanitizer, we will enable a village entrepreneur through existing foundation relationships focused on water and hygiene, by providing them with one of our topical antiseptic dispensers for sanitizer distribution to the village within a sales cycle that is best fit for the village.

Our path forward to bring in revenue and keep a margin for continued work is as follows:

1. Continue to grow our safetyspot.com sales revenues
1.a support agreements for a fee
1.b IoT connected devices for a fee

2. Continue to pursue grant funds

3. Continue to pursue customer funding product development opportunities

4. Raise capital investment from a family office and CVD

To build community awareness of safetyspot.com and our solution to help address climate change and improve human health through reduction in spread of pathogens in an economical and efficient manner, enabled through scientific breakthrough. 

Pharmacies such as Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS, etc. 

Hospitals.

Universities

Philanthropic organizations focused on human health and climate change, specifically Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV). 

Our team will utilize the funding to support prototype buildout and deployment at sites for primary feedback to improve the product and market fit to maximize the availability of economic tools for our health care workers and a secure supply chain with data analytics.

Our team will utilize our data collected to feed an AI/ML to provide temperature data on a global basis to better inform health systems on their community's health and wellness based upon temperature surveys, incentivized by sanitizer access.

Our team directly addresses the following UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) to transform our world:

goal 3: good health and well being, topical antiseptic
goal 4: quality education, our learning management system for STEAM
goal 6: clean water and sanitization: our atmospheric water capture subsystem
goal 8: decent work and economic growth: our service and support model 
goal 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure: our carbon capture and conversion for infrastructure and buildings
goal 11: sustainable cities and communities: secure supply chains
goal 12: responsible consumption and production: produce product from carbon dioxide, dispense it in an efficient manner to maximize surface area coverage of topical antiseptic while minimizing material consumption
goal 13: climate action, our endless sanitizer dispenser kiosks build community awareness of climate change and solutions to address it

The $200,000 in fund will be deployed to support our endless sanitizer dispenser deployment for individuals and households. This version of our endless sanitizer features a refill port for pocket sized sanitizer dispensing.