photo by: AdobeStock

An air conditioner being recharged with refrigerant is shown in this file photo.

The KU-spinoff company Icorium Engineering is all about being cold. But the enterprise that focuses on new technology for the refrigeration industry can now claim to be one of Lawrence’s hottest start-up companies.

Icorium earlier this month received a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant that is designed to move the company from one that primarily is conducting research to one that will begin booking revenues from the refrigeration industry by recycling old and environmentally-dangerous refrigerant chemicals.

The $1.2 million grant comes through the Small Business Innovation Research program that NSF operates. The grant is a major sign that scientists believe Icorium has largely proven its new recycling technology can take the old refrigerant chemicals that course through air conditioners, coolers and other such equipment and effectively break them apart and prepare them to be reused to create new refrigerants.

That breakdown is a big deal in the refrigeration industry because it currently is a struggle to find a use for old refrigeration chemicals. That’s a particular problem because the chemicals can’t simply be released into the air because they contribute significantly to climate change when they enter the atmosphere. As result, there are millions of pounds of old refrigerant sitting in storage at any given time, Icorium officials have said.

Figuring out how to reuse those chemicals would be a big deal to the industry, but also might be a big deal to Lawrence. The $1.2 million grant is specifically aimed at helping Icorium move from pilot testing of its technology to a full commercial venture.

Ultimately that would mean a plant full of the proprietary equipment that Icorium has developed to separate the chemicals. The press release announcing the grant doesn’t put a timeline on when such a development may occur, and it also doesn’t state that Lawrence would be the location for such a plant.

photo by: Icorium Engineering

Kalin Baca

But it is a development worth keeping an eye on nonetheless. The company has strong KU ties. Its co-founder and CEO, Kalin Baca, is a recent graduate of KU’s doctoral program in chemical engineering. The other co-founder is KU engineering professor Mark Shiflett, who is widely considered one of the top innovators in the refrigeration industry.

You may recall that Shiflett was in the news in August 2024 when it was announced that KU had received a $26 million NSF grant to develop an Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub. Shiflett — who worked as a refrigerant inventor and researcher at the chemical giant DuPont — leads the new research hub, which KU has dubbed as EARTH.

photo by: University of Kansas

Mark Shiflett, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering and director of the Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering, University of Kansas, will lead the EARTH Center.

Icorium is a spinoff from research that Baca conducted as a student of Shiflett. Currently the company operates out of KU space, which is large enough for the company to use its technology for small batches of refrigerants, but not large enough to separate large quantities of refrigerant chemicals.

Getting to the point of being able to process larger batches of chemicals will be a key step in becoming a big commercial enterprise that presumably could lead to a bevy of high-paying jobs that would be associated with such a plant.

Even if that plant doesn’t end up in Lawrence, if the company were to keep its research and headquarters in Lawrence, that likely would be a big win for Lawrence as well. I’ve got a message into Baca to learn a bit more, but according to Icorium’s website, the company already has about a half-dozen engineering employees.