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Brendan Smith, PhD

Role
CEO & Co-Founder, SiTration
Startup Project

SiTration

Concept

Ultra-durable filtration membranes for efficient separations in the harshest environments.

Industry

Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing

Background

MIT, Grossman Lab

“SiTration is changing the way that industry performs industrial separations. Battery recycling, textiles, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and chemical production — all these spaces are doing numerous separations of complex liquid and gas mixtures, and largely doing them really, really inefficiently. And so that means massive energy consumption, a huge amount of wasted resources, and extremely high costs.We’re working on a new membrane filtration technology, which will enable membrane filtration to be utilized in more of these industrial separation cases. For example, the technology could enable separations to use 10 times less energy and consume half the water, at half the original operating cost.”

Discovery and Connections

"We’re building industrial partnerships to get market traction and move towards a pilot in an industrial environment.

We’re also doing traditional customer discovery to learn how our technology can best provide value to future customers. It helps us internally validate our ideas and prove that we are moving the needle. Simultaneously, we’re constantly thinking about expanding our amazing team and accelerating our impact through fundraising."

The Power of Community

"The Engine’s done an incredible job of assembling an awesome group of people — very diverse backgrounds, very diverse goals, but all trying to make a massive impact. And that type of group amplifies the efforts of everyone involved. When you have a strong community, everyone benefits in so many different ways.

At Blueprint, it’s not about competitiveness, it’s more about comradery. And The Engine’s done a great job of fostering that. The value of a community like this can’t be understated. Who knows where all these relationships will lead?"