Quiet Khosla Ventures-backed startup Transonic Combustion has garnered attention over the last few days after revealing the geeky details of its scheme for a more efficient fuel-injection system. The company, which presented at the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E Summit last week, represents only one of a raft of startups working on technology that could help boost the fuel efficiency and reduce the emissions of the world’s vehicle fleet long before electric cars go mainstream.

This type of tech doesn’t have the glitz of an electric sports car — it’s meant to go under the hood, unseen, in models that look and feel much the same as the same old gas and diesel vehicles now on the road. But considering that conventional vehicles will likely make up the bulk of automakers’ lineup for years to come, the array of MPG boosters now in the works could help them meet tightening fuel economy and emission requirements for their fleet. Whether and how much car companies end up betting on young ventures for this tech remains to be seen, but these seven startups aim to seize that opportunity in coming months and years.

Company	Founded	Backers	Technology	Strategy/Timeline
Achates Power	2004	Sequoia Capital, Rockport Capital Partners, Interwest Partners, Madrone Capital, Triangle Peak Partners	High-efficiency two-stroke diesel engine that has higher power density (more power, less weight) and lower emissions than currently available options.	Testing a 4.2 liter, 4-cylinder engine “that rivals conventional engines nearly twice its size.” Plans to license tech to big manufacturers and automakers, (charging a $50 million licensing fee plus 5 percent of revenue, according to a company presentation last year).
Alphabet Energy	2009	U.S. Department of Energy, Army, Air Force	Thermoelectrics for waste heat recovery (materials that “generate electricity when you make one side hot and the other side cold”) at a cost 50x cheaper than existing materials.	Targeting heavy industries (e.g. aluminum and cement production), as well as auto market. First product on the market within 2-3 years.
EcoMotors	2007	Khosla Ventures	Diesel engine with stackable modules. One of the engine modules can be shut off when it isn’t needed.	Deliver a diesel engine that can do 100 MPG by 2011. Focusing on developing markets.
IRIS Engines	2005	Funding from competitions sponsored by DFJ Mercury, Dow Chemical, ConocoPhillips and NASA	Two-stroke gasoline engine at costs comparable to today’s typical four-stroke engines, with up to twice the efficiency. Internal structure mimics the iris of an eye, allowing the diameter to expand and contract.	Aims to raise some $14 million in investment by mid 2010 to fund development. Plans to pursue licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers starting around 2012.
NxtGen Emission Controls	2004	Altira, Yaletown Venture Partners, Growthworks Capital, BC Advantage Funds, Polygon Financial Investments, ITOCHU Corp.	Systems for retrofitting diesel engines to convert fuel and exhaust into syngas, which burns cleaner than diesel and at a lower temperature.	Launched first product (syngas generators for lab use or engine testing) in 2009. Other products were in field testing last year.
Transonic Combustion	2006	Khosla Ventures, Venrock, Rustic Canyon Partners, Saints Capital	Supercritical fuel injection system that runs on high-compression diesel engines. Minimizes waste heat. Proprietary software lets system adjust injection based on engine load.	Aims to close final funding round by end of 2010, set up manufacturing in 2013 and deploy tech in production vehicles in 2014. Currently working with three major automakers.
Levant Power	2008	Angel investors	GenShock shock absorbers harvest kinetic energy when a vehicle hits a bump. Levant claims fuel efficiency gains of 2-10 percent depending on vehicle and application.	Nationwide commercial rollout sometime after 2010. Potential target markets include U.S. military and truck makers.

[gigaom]

Not too long ago, Toyota reigned as the seemingly untouchable hybrid leader. That dominance — in terms of both market share (50 percent of hybrids sold in the U.S.) and mindshare (no alt-fuel vehicle on the market is better known or more widely recognized than the Toyota Prius) — means that as the Prius image takes a beating, other models across the spectrum of green cars will also get bruised.

Mike Omotoso, senior manager for J.D. Power and Associates’ global powertrain unit, told me the firm plans to lower its hybrid and electric vehicle forecast for 2010, although it has yet to determine how big the hit will be. For the first two months of this year, the hybrid share of light vehicle sales hovered at around just 2.3 percent, compared to 2.8 percent for all of 2009 and 2.4 percent in 2008, according to Omotoso. That’s due to a number of factors — including high unemployment, a weak economy and the biggie: gas prices. But the Prius and its technical troubles loom too large to ignore.

Prior to 2009, the Prius’ share of U.S. hybrid sales had slipped below 50 percent only once since 2005 — in 2006, when it dropped to 42 percent. But even that offers a sign of Toyota’s dominance in the hybrid space. Omotoso explained that 2006 marked “the first year for the Camry hybrid and the first full year for the Highlander hybrid. So other Toyota models cannibalized Prius sales.”

Regulators are only beginning to look into the most recent incidents. But initial reports suggest the problems may not have been linked to a floor mat that pinned down the gas pedal in other Priuses and prompted Toyota to issue a recall last year for 2004-2009 models of the hybrid. Last month, when problems surfaced with the regenerative braking system of some 2010 Prius models, Toyota attributed them to a software glitch.

Regardless of what investigators and Toyota may turn up if they check out the cars involved in this week’s incidents more closely, however, one thing’s already clear: Videos that zipped around the web and TV news shows this week of a visibly shaken driver, and quotes from the 911 call he made during the 23 minutes that his 2008 Prius hurdled at high speeds down a Southern California highway before a highway patrol officer helped him stop, aren’t helping to repair the reputation of either Toyota or advanced vehicles.

Given the Prius’ status as the poster child for hybrids, Omotoso explained, “consumers might think that if the Prius has a problem then all hybrids might be dangerous.” That concern creates one more obstacle for new vehicle technologies to penetrate the mainstream, as some car buyers may forgo experimenting with the next generation of green cars — among them plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles from General Motors’ Chevy Volt and Nissan’s LEAF to BYD Auto’s e6, Coda Automotive’s Coda Sedan and Fisker Automotive’s Nina — rolling out over the next few years.

That perception problem is a hurdle that many car makers can’t really afford in this nascent market. Plug-in vehicle developers are competing for a niche that’s likely to remain quite small for years to come. Nearly a decade after the Prius debut, hybrids still hold a single-digit sliver of the pie. And despite optimistic projections from investors like Warren Buffett, who has said he expects all cars will run on electricity by 2030, other forecasts suggest significantly slower adoption, mainly due to high price tags.

Lux Research forecasts that even if oil costs $200 a barrel in 2020, just 4 percent of vehicles sold globally will be all-electric or plug-in hybrid because of the high costs of the battery technology. According to Lux, plug-in hybrids could sell 3 million units per year by 2020 if the price of oil reaches those heights, while hybrids can be expected to sell that many by 2020 regardless of oil prices.

In addition to presenting a challenge to companies vying to win over consumers to advanced vehicles, Toyota’s ongoing troubles also highlight a need for the government, the auto industry and even drivers to collect and manage (or in the case of drivers, to file), vehicle safety data and complaints in a more open and timely manner. Noting in prepared testimony that regulators and Toyota had received complaints of unintended acceleration in Toyota models seven years ago, Consumers Union is issuing that challenge – to increase transparency of vehicle safety data – in a hearing this morning on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s oversight operations. As much as technology may be part of the problem with Toyota’s vehicles, it could also be part of the solution — helping identify problems before too many drivers are put in the situation of having to call 911 from behind the wheel of an out-of-control car.





[gigaom]

Back in 2004 startup Purfresh — then called Novazone — underwent a complete overhaul and began to refocus its efforts on selling its purification and preservation technology to the food and water industries. While the legacy that then-CEO David White (who was eventually replaced by David Cope – one of our 25 Who Ditched Infotech for Cleantech) put in place is still going strong, the company is still also raising money five years after its Series A round. According to an SEC filing, Purfresh has just raised $10 million from investors including Foundation Capital.

Pufresh makes ozone-based technology for purifying and preserving food and water, and sells things like disinfection systems for sanitizing fruits, crops, water, canned drinks, medicines and personal-care products. Purfresh’s technology can also be used to extend the life of perishable goods that are shipped long distances. Purfresh says its systems can kill more contaminants than chlorine, at a lower cost, with no harmful chemicals, and with no leftover residue (making it a good fit for the organic food market).

How does it work? In the case of sanitizing food and crops, the company’s refrigerator-sized system binds air with extra oxygen molecules to make ozone, which is then injected into a water-filled tank that cleans the food, explained Jennifer Kho in this Red Herring article. The extra, unstable oxygen atom attaches itself to bacteria and kills it and the rest of the gas turns into oxygen. Ozone purification processes have been used in the bottled drink market for awhile, but less commonly in the food sanitization industry.

This latest round of $10 million is at least the fourth round of funding over the last five years. Purfresh raised a Series C round of $25 million in mid 2008, a $7 million in Series B financing in 2006 and a $10.6 million Series A back in 2005. The company is backed by Chilton Investment Company, Foundation Capital, Grauer Capital and Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital.





About Purfresh

Business:	Clean solutions for food and water
Founded:	1996
Locations:	Headquarters in Fremont, Calif. Sales and support locations around the globe.

Purfresh offers a range of clean technology solutions that purify, protect, and preserve our food and water. Purfresh’s innovative crop applications, food wash systems and cold chain technologies effectively safeguard fresh produce before and after harvest. Our water technologies purify and disinfect bottled, pharmaceutical and consumer products. Today, customers in 42 countries rely on Purfresh to boost yields, control costs, and improve the safety and quality of their products, including Auvil Fruit Company, Coca-Cola, Fruit Patch, Procter & Gamble, and Safeway.

[earth2tech]

A new washing machine design uses 90 percent less water and reduces utility bills by 30 percent by cleaning clothes with tiny plastic beads.

The machine by UK company Xeros Ltd uses 3mm-long nylon beads that can get into all crevices and folds of clothing and absorb stains and dirt.  Stephen Burkinshaw, a polymer chemist at Leeds University, discovered that nylon beads at 100 percent humidity could attract stains away from clothing and into the center of the beads, preventing deposition back onto the clothes.

The machine uses a small amount of water to dampen the clothes and to reach the right humidity level, then the drum is flooded with the beads.  When the cycle is complete the beads drain away with the water to be reused hundreds of times.

I'm sure you've already started questioning what happens to these plastic beads once they're done scrubbing clothes.  The company wants to eventually create a closed loop where the saturated beads can be refreshed and reused in the machines, but for the time being they will be collected and recycled.

Xeros says that if all of the US used these machines instead of regular washing machines, it would save 1.2 billion tonnes of water per year and  the CO2 emissions saved would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.  The machine would also eliminate the need to dry clean many delicates, another environmental benefit.  The Xeros machine is expected to be available by the end of next year.

Watch Video : http://www.xerosltd.com/xeros-marketing.htm

Website : http://www.xerosltd.com/

[ecogeek]