E-ffiliates welcomes early-stage climate tech firm RainIons
The Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership (E-ffiliates), a corporate membership program administered by the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, has welcomed RainIons, an early-stage climate tech firm focused on developing an innovation for the reduction of both noxious and greenhouse gas emissions.
In its early testing, RainIons has demonstrated that its proprietary technology — consisting of naturally occurring and low-cost materials — is capable of upcycling the heat, pressure, and moisture present in the exhaust stream of point-source carbon emitters to capture carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides (NOx), a class of air pollutants that form the precursor to smog.
As an E-ffiliates member, RainIons will collaborate with a community of academic researchers at Princeton to continue characterizing and refining the underlying mechanism behind the technology’s carbon and air pollutant capture abilities, with a goal of achieving a complex, functional prototype.
“If properly developed and scaled, RainIons’ technology could have a meaningful impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution across the energy system,” said firm founder Mark DiCarlo. “We look forward to our partnership with the Andlinger Center to expedite our understanding of the scientific mechanism behind our technology in order to prepare for commercial applications.”
Barry Rand, associate director for external partnerships at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, said that the addition of RainIons to E-ffiliates highlights the Andlinger Center’s strengths in materials science and characterization. He also said the partnership supports the mission of the Andlinger Center to develop technologies with the potential for positive, real-world impact.
“The collaboration with RainIons will build on the Andlinger Center’s foundational strengths to explore a new technology that may advance the world toward a shared sustainable future,” said Rand, who is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
Beyond refining RainIons’ technology, DiCarlo said that in the future, the partnership could explore the role that the technology could play in the energy market, along with the system-wide potential to reduce the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
“The Andlinger Center’s multidisciplinary, solutions-driven approach provides opportunities for the types of collaborations that a firm of our size needs in order to achieve our longer-term goals,” said Ben Taylor ’99, RainIons advisor. “We are excited to work with researchers and other E-ffiliates members to find low-cost ways of minimizing carbon dioxide emissions from hydrocarbon combustion and cutting NOx emissions from high-temperature hydrogen combustion.”