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Company
Portfolio Data
Back to Company SearchKLAW INDUSTRIES LLC
UEI: RBJMS979DDU3
Number of Employees: 4
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
SBIR/STTR Involvement
Year of first award: 2022
4
Phase I Awards
2
Phase II Awards
50%
Conversion Rate
$499,966
Phase I Dollars
$800,000
Phase II Dollars
$1,299,966
Total Awarded
Awards
AI-Driven Recycling Centers for Disadvantaged Communities: Improving Recovery, Safety, and Costs
Amount: $400,000 Topic: 5B
Creating the Foundation for Modern Recycling Facilities The processing technology used in the recycling industry has remained unchanged since the 1980s, relying on manual labor and rudimentary machinery to solve our waste crisis. For the past 40 years, municipalities have shelled out egregious tipping fees for ineffective and dangerous sorting practices. Cities across the U.S. need a new recycling processing system to correct the backward economic model plaguing the sector. Our project has developed a rapidly deployable, autonomous robotic sorting system to build the foundation for the next era of recycling facilities. Rather than relying on slow-moving waste haulers, KLAW Industries has developed, deployed, and operated this technology to reduce municipal tipping fees by 13%. With an autonomous sorting system to match the modern waste stream, we have demonstrated our ability to reduce product contamination to 0.5%, lower capital costs by 58%, and decrease excess hauling by 94%. Technical Feasibility & Comparative Performance During Phase I, we demonstrated our system's accuracy of 90% and validated our 13% cost savings to municipalities by processing single-stream recycling directly from the City of Binghamton in pilot operations. KLAW Industries' researchers have made breakthrough innovations in feature extraction and convolutional neural networks during Phase I to make rapidly deployable autonomous sorting possible at a local level, which we have demonstrated on over 6 tons of recyclables. During Phase II, we will commercialize the technology and deploy a full-scale prototype to process recyclables in regular operations. We will continue our partnership with the City, bringing cost-effective recycling to the disadvantaged community of the East Side of Binghamton. Our target market is cities and commissioners of public works who face the unpleasant dilemma between paying more for recycling or saving money, time, and headaches by dropping the program, as many low-income towns and villages already have. Market Size & Performance Benefits & Environmental Benefits With a total available market (TAM) of $37.8B in the U.S., we will phase out diesel-powered hauling enterprises and usher in technology companies focused on long-term material recovery. The recycling sector injury rate is 3.2 per 100 full-time-equivalent workers. Autonomous sorting protects critical workers by moving away from conveyor belts and toward computer terminals. With an increased sorting accuracy of 90% and a 13% lower tipping fee validated during Phase I, we will begin sorting, classifying, and reusing waste locally to achieve a recycling rate of 50% by 2030.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase II
2025
EPA
Low Embodied Carbon Alternative For Stabilization and Full Depth Reclamation Utilizing Waste Glass
Amount: $100,000 Topic: 4C
Creating the Foundation for Modern Soil Stabilization. Fly ash from coal power plants is one of the United States' most polluted materials, and today, it is being dumped right in our backyard. Full-depth reclamation and soil stabilization have been a significant advancement in the paving industry in the past 8 years, allowing for in-place material recycling, drastic reductions in the virgin aggregate, and resilient roadways. However, the innovative process relies on mixing industrial waste and high-carbon cement with our roads. This project will develop a market-ready alternative to the legacy fly ash and cement used in the industry today with the waste we send to our landfills. This new material will replace high-embodied carbon materials in stabilization projects and solve contractors' needs by being 10% lower cost, 94% less carbon-intensive, and 14% stronger than fly ash used today. Technical Feasibility & Commercial Applications. KLAW Industries has made a substantial material advancement, allowing the 7.5 million tons of waste glass we landfill every year in the United States to alter the trajectory of the paving industry. The project will deploy prototype material in a pilot project to demonstrate that this technology can build longer-lasting, lower-cost, and stronger roadways for rural communities across the United States. Our target market is stabilization project managers who are forced to use legacy materials of the past with constant cost, quality, and supply problems. Market Size & Performance Benefits & Environmental Benefits. A low-cost alternative to fly ash and cement allows stabilization contractors to provide their customers with an all-around better product while drastically reducing the embodied carbon of the built environment without needing to change their process. The total addressable market for bringing recycled glass to the full-depth reclamation industry is $40 billion in the U.S. As sources of fly ash continue to disappear and cement prices rise, this market will grow at a rate of 6.6% over the next ten years. Utilizing recycled glass in full-depth reclamation projects will leverage one of the country's most persistent and stable waste streams to deploy a sustainable alternative for agencies, municipalities, and private companies completing infrastructure projects. Recycled glass changes the industry by increasing compressive strength by 14%, lowering excess hauling by 62%, and reducing material costs by 10%. Deploying this new material will prevent 7.03 million tons of embodied carbon from entering U.S. infrastructure annually.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2025
EPA
AI-Driven Recycling Centers for Disadvantaged Communities: Improving Recovery, Safety, and Costs
Amount: $100,000 Topic: 5B
Creating the Foundation for Modern Recycling Facilities: The processing technology used in the recycling industry has remained unchanged since the 1980s, relying on manual labor and rudimentary machinery to solve our waste crisis. For the past 40 years, municipalities have shelled out egregious tipping fees for ineffective and dangerous sorting practices. Cities across the U.S. need a new recycling processing system to enter the waste industry and correct the backward economic model plaguing the sector. This project will create a proof of concept of a rapidly deployable, autonomous robotic sorting system to build the foundatio n for the next era of recycling facilities. Rather than relying on slow-moving waste haulers, KLAW Industries will develop, deploy, and operate this technology to reduce municipal tipping fees by 31%. With an autonomous sorting system to match the modern waste stream, we can reduce product contamination to 0.5%, lower capital costs by 65%, and decrease excess hauling by 94%. Technical Feasibility & Comparative Performance: With backing from the City of Binghamton, KLAW Industries' researchers have made a breakthrough innovation in feature extract ion and convolutional neural networks to make rapidly deployable autonomous sorting possible at a local level, resulting in higher recovery rates and a significant savings potential for City residents. This project will develop a prototype to demonstrate this technology can be used in an industrial setting to process regular volumes of recyclables from citizens of the disadvantaged community of the East Side of Binghamton. Our target market is cities and commissioners of public works who face the unpleasant dilemma between paying more for recycling or saving money, time, and headaches by dropping the program entirely, as many low-income towns and villages already have. Market Size & Performance Benefits & Environmental Benefits: With a total available market (TAM) of $37.8B in the U.S., the achievements in computer science present an opportunity to rectify one of the most extensive economic calamities in history. With drastic reductions in capital costs, we can shuffle diesel-powered hauling enterprises out and usher in technology companies focused on long-term material recovery. The recycling sector injury rate is 3.2 per 100 full-time equivalent workers. Autonomous sorting protects critical workers by moving away from conveyor belts and toward computer terminals. With an increased sorting accuracy of 90% and a 31% lower tipping fee, this project will begin sorting, classifying, and reusing waste locally to achieve a recycling rate of 50% by 2030.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2024
EPA
Apollo: A Patent Pending Mobile Device for Onsite Carbonation of Recycled Concrete Aggregate
Amount: $200,000 Topic: 24-FH2
The concrete industry faces a massive economic and environmental challenge as quality virgin aggregates become increasingly difficult to source. Recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) is readily available yet has remained drastically underutilized throughout the nation's transportation industry due to performance challenges with various factors critical for concrete production, including water absorption coefficient and alkali-silica reaction history. The proposed project creates a new, mobile, and scalable device called Apollo™, capable of carbonating recycled concrete at a ready mix concrete plant or in the field at a construction site. Apollo™ is a patent-pending device that brings carbonation capabilities to ready-mix plant operators and contractors with an advanced rolling process that fundamentally changes the economics of RCA carbonation. The project objective is to eliminate the technical barriers facing Apollo™ to begin user testing with ready-mix concrete plants that have signed letters of support. Adopting waste streams for paving applications is a common practice, with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) and recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) widely used in the industry today. Scalable carbonation eliminates RCA's performance challenges and aligns concrete producers' financial interests to turn one of our most significant waste streams into an end market for sequestered carbon.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2024
DOT
Prototyping a Process to Reuse Wasted Glass in High Performance Low Carbon Concrete
Amount: $400,000 Topic: 4D
How Glass SCMs Solve the Market Need. The process of producing cement has remained unchanged since the industrial revolution. Concrete producers need a new high performing cement alternative to lower their concrete products' cost and embodied carbon. Otherwise, we will be building our future communities using a process with the environmental and financial costs of 1820s technology. This project will create a market-ready supplementary cementitious material (SCM) derived from the 7.55 million tons of waste glass we send to landfills across the US each year. This new material will replace cement and solve concrete producers' needs by being 25% lower cost, 97% less carbon-intensive, and 33% stronger than traditional cement, as proven in our Phase I project. Technical Feasibility & Commercial Applications. In Phase I, KLAW Industries demonstrated that a scalable process to utilize waste glass could produce a recycled glass SCM that is lower cost and lower embodied carbon than current market options. The new material passed the concrete industry's standard, ASTM 1866, meaning concrete producers can use glass SCMs in any commercial project, such as building foundations and sidewalks. A critical component of our Phase I research was to complete a pilot project using a glass SCM, putting high-performance, low-carbon concrete into the field. Our target end-users for recycled glass SCMs are mix directors at ready-mix concrete plants. These are the concrete companies that drive concrete trucks. Ready-mix concrete is the target market since they are most sensitive to price and increased performance. So far, one ready-mix concrete producer has already integrated our recycled glass SCM, Pantheon™, into their manufacturing process, a significant validation for glass SCMs. Market Size & Performance Benefits & Environmental Benefits. A low-cost recycled glass SCM allows ready-mix concrete producers to provide their customers with an all-around better product at a lower cost without needing to change their process. The total addressable market for recycled glass SCMs is $1.3B in the US. As fossil fuel prices increase and cement prices rise, this market will grow in the next ten years. Recycled glass SCMs will keep 7.55 million tons of glass from entering American landfills annually by utilizing waste glass. By replacing cement in concrete, glass SCMs will mitigate 0.97 tons of CO2 for every 1 ton of glass SCM utilized. At scale, glass SCMs will prevent 7.1 million tons of embodied carbon in United States' infrastructure annually.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase II
2023
EPA
Prototyping a Process to Reuse Wasted Glass in High Performance Low Carbon Concrete
Amount: $99,966 Topic: 4D
How Glass SCMs Solve the Market Need The process to produce cement has remained unchanged since the industrial revolution. Concrete producers need a new high-performing cement alternative to lower their concrete products' cost and embodied carbon. Otherwise, we will be building our future communities using a process with the embodied carbon and financial costs of 1820s technology. This project aims to develop a proof of concept production process for a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) derived from waste glass currently sent to landfills across the United States. This new material will be 25% lower cost, 97% less carbon-intensive, and 11% stronger than Portland cement. Technical Feasibility & Comparative Performance In conjunction with Clarkson University, KLAW Industries' researchers have shown that using recycled glass as an SCM in concrete is possible, making the resulting material stronger and chemically resistant. This project aims to develop a prototype to demonstrate that this technology can be produced in an industrial setting. The SCM developed from recycled glass in a lab setting has shown promising results. Without changing their process, concrete producers achieve 11% stronger concrete and favorable surface finishing properties. Due to the comparatively low energy requirements of producing recycled glass SCMs, the material will have a significant carbon and price advantage compared to Portland cement. Commercial Applications & End Users Through the NSF National I-Corps Program, over 268 customer interviews have been completed. Readymix concrete producers have been identified as the optimum beachhead market due to their high volume, low margin business model. A low-cost recycled glass SCM will allow ready-mix concrete producers to provide their customers with an all-around better product at a lower cost with no need to change their infrastructure or process. Small pilot projects completed with potential concrete partners have led to grassroots support for this technology. Market Size & Environmental Benefits The total addressable market for a recycled glass SCM is $1.3B in the U.S. As fossil fuel prices increase and cement prices rise, this market is expected to grow in the next ten years. A recycled glass SCM will keep 7.55 million tons of glass from entering American landfills every year by utilizing waste glass. By replacing cement in concrete, glass SCM’s will lower the embodied carbon of concrete by 20% in every pour and by 50% in specialty pours. This will prevent 7.1 million tons of embodied carbon from entering U.S. infrastructure annually.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2022
EPA