Joint venture between two Houston companies creates new mask line with disease-destroying tech

well protected

Blended Huemanity's masks use zinc woven into the material to kill microbes of the virus. Photo via blendedhuemanity.com

Two Houston companies have joined forces to create a new line of protective face masks that are able to deactivate the coronavirus.

Accel Lifestyle and Ascend Performance Materials have partnered to create Blended Huemanity, which has released its Acteev Protect™ Nonwoven Mask.

"The partnership between Accel Lifestyle and Ascend Performance Materials brings together two powerhouse companies, with expertise in science, fabric, manufacturing, branding and consumer products," says Megan Eddings, founder and CEO of Accel Lifestyle, in a statement. "If the last few months have shown us anything, the need for face coverings isn't going anywhere. We all want to return to normal life — sporting events, family gatherings, hugs with friends — but we want to do so safely and comfortably."

The mask's design incorporates natural ingredients in the Acteev™ technology that the University of Cambridge has confirmed can eliminate COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, with 99.9 percent efficacy. Ascend is currently seeking the appropriate regulatory protocols with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other governmental agencies.

"Acteev's active layer of defense uses safe, environmentally friendly active zinc ions embedded into the matrix of the polymer – not a chemical spray that will wash away or flake off — meaning these masks can be used again and again," says Phil McDivitt, CEO of Ascend, the company that invented Acteev™ technology, in the release.

Comfort and efficiency were both priorities for the design.

"Even the best masks only offer protection if they're worn, and the Acteev Protect™ Nonwoven Mask is so soft and breathable that it's comfortable to wear for hours," McDivitt says in the release. "They are a great choice for teachers, restaurant staff, transportation workers and anyone whose lifestyle takes them out of their homes and into the world."

The company is currently selling the masks for $99 for a pack of 25. They are available online for health care workers or citizens alike.

"We are wildly excited about protecting not only our frontline healthcare workers but the entire population," says Eddings in the release. "Both Phil McDivitt and I, along with our teams, have a passion for creating products that serve the health and protection of humanity. The fact that we are able to combine our team's resources and strengths and produce products that will truly save lives is profound and beautiful."

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UH receives $2.6M gift to support opioid addiction research and treatment

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The estate of Dr. William A. Gibson has granted the University of Houston a $2.6 million gift to support and expand its opioid addiction research, including the development of a fentanyl vaccine that could block the drug's ability to enter the brain.

The gift builds upon a previous donation from the Gibson estate that honored the scientist’s late son Michael, who died from drug addiction in 2019. The original donation established the Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program in UH's department of psychology. The latest donation will establish the Michael Conner Gibson Endowed Professorship in Psychology and the Michael Conner Gibson Research Endowment in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

“This incredibly generous gift will accelerate UH’s addiction research program and advance new approaches to treatment,” Daniel O’Connor, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said in a news release.

The Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program is led by UH professor of psychology Therese Kosten and Colin Haile, a founding member of the UH Drug Discovery Institute. Currently, the program produces high-profile drug research, including the fentanyl vaccine.

According to UH, the vaccine can eliminate the drug’s “high” and could have major implications for the nation’s opioid epidemic, as research reveals Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is treatable.

The endowed professorship is combined with a one-to-one match from the Aspire Fund Challenge, a $50 million grant program established in 2019 by an anonymous donor. UH says the program has helped the university increase its number of endowed chairs and professorships, including this new position in the department of psychology.

“Our future discoveries will forever honor the memory of Michael Conner Gibson and the Gibson family,” O’Connor added in the release. “And I expect that the work supported by these endowments will eventually save many thousands of lives.”

CenterPoint and partners launch AI initiative to stabilize the power grid

AI infrastructure

Houston-based utility company CenterPoint Energy is one of the founding partners of a new AI infrastructure initiative called Chain Reaction.

Software companies NVIDIA and Palantir have joined CenterPoint in forming Chain Reaction, which is aimed at speeding up AI buildouts for energy producers and distributors, data centers and infrastructure builders. Among the initiative’s goals are to stabilize and expand the power grid to meet growing demand from data centers, and to design and develop large data centers that can support AI activity.

“The energy infrastructure buildout is the industrial challenge of our generation,” Tristan Gruska, Palantir’s head of energy and infrastructure, says in a news release. “But the software that the sector relies on was not built for this moment. We have spent years quietly deploying systems that keep power plants running and grids reliable. Chain Reaction is the result of building from the ground up for the demands of AI.”

CenterPoint serves about 7 million customers in Texas, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio. After Hurricane Beryl struck Houston in July 2024, CenterPoint committed to building a resilient power grid for the region and chose Palantir as its “software backbone.”

“Never before have technology and energy been so intertwined in determining the future course of American innovation, commercial growth, and economic security,” Jason Wells, chairman, president and CEO of CenterPoint, added in the release.

In November, the utility company got the go-ahead from the Public Utility Commission of Texas for a $2.9 billion upgrade of its Houston-area power grid. CenterPoint serves 2.9 million customers in a 12-county territory anchored by Houston.

A month earlier, CenterPoint launched a $65 billion, 10-year capital improvement plan to support rising demand for power across all of its service territories.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston researchers develop material to boost AI speed and cut energy use

ai research

A team of researchers at the University of Houston has developed an innovative thin-film material that they believe will make AI devices faster and more energy efficient.

AI data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and use large cooling systems to operate, adding a strain on overall energy consumption.

“AI has made our energy needs explode,” Alamgir Karim, Dow Chair and Welch Foundation Professor at the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UH, explained in a news release. “Many AI data centers employ vast cooling systems that consume large amounts of electricity to keep the thousands of servers with integrated circuit chips running optimally at low temperatures to maintain high data processing speed, have shorter response time and extend chip lifetime.”

In a report recently published in ACS Nano, Karim and a team of researchers introduced a specialized two-dimensional thin film dielectric, or electric insulator. The film, which does not store electricity, could be used to replace traditional, heat-generating components in integrated circuit chips, which are essential hardware powering AI.

The thinner film material aims to reduce the significant energy cost and heat produced by the high-performance computing necessary for AI.

Karim and his former doctoral student, Maninderjeet Singh, used Nobel prize-winning organic framework materials to develop the film. Singh, now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, developed the materials during his doctoral training at UH, along with Devin Shaffer, a UH professor of civil engineering, and doctoral student Erin Schroeder.

Their study shows that dielectrics with high permittivity (high-k) store more electrical energy and dissipate more energy as heat than those with low-k materials. Karim focused on low-k materials made from light elements, like carbon, that would allow chips to run cooler and faster.

The team then created new materials with carbon and other light elements, forming covalently bonded sheetlike films with highly porous crystalline structures using a process known as synthetic interfacial polymerization. Then they studied their electronic properties and applications in devices.

According to the report, the film was suitable for high-voltage, high-power devices while maintaining thermal stability at elevated operating temperatures.

“These next-generation materials are expected to boost the performance of AI and conventional electronics devices significantly,” Singh added in the release.

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