3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes James Tour of Rice University, Kristy Phillips of Clean Habits, and Jiming Bao of University of Houston. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes a Houston chemist, a cleaning product founder, and a UH researcher.

James Tour, chemist at Rice University

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing PFAS from soil. Photo via Rice University

A Rice University chemist James Tour has secured a new $12 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center on the team’s work to efficiently remove pollutants from soil.

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from contaminated soil through its rapid electrothermal mineralization (REM) process, according to a statement from Rice.

“This is a substantial improvement over previous methods, which often suffer from high energy and water consumption, limited efficiency and often require the soil to be removed,” Tour says. Read more.

Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits

What started as a way to bring natural cleaning products in from overseas has turned into a promising application for more sustainable agriculture solutions. Photo via LinkedIn

When something is declared clean, one question invariably springs to mind: just how clean is clean?

Then it is, “What metrics decide what’s clean and what’s not?”

To answer those questions, one must abandon the subjective and delve into the scientific — and that’s where Clean Habits come in. The company has science on its side with Synbio, a patented cleaning formula that combines a unique blend of prebiotics and probiotics for their signature five-day clean.

“Actually, we are a synbiotic, which is a prebiotic and a probiotic fused together,” says Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits. “And that's what gives us the five-day clean, and we also have the longest shelf life — three years — of any probiotic on the market.” Read more.

Jiming Bao, professor at University of Houston

Th innovative method involves techniques that will be used to measure and visualize temperature distributions without direct contact with the subject being photographed. Photo via UH.edu

A University of Houston professor of electrical and computer engineering, Jiming Bao, is improving thermal imaging and infrared thermography with a new method to measure the continuous spectrum of light.

His innovative method involves techniques that will be used to measure and visualize temperature distributions without direct contact with the subject being photographed, according to the university. The challenges generally faced by conventional thermal imaging is addressed, as the new study hopes to eliminate temperature dependence, and wavelength.

“We designed a technique using a near-infrared spectrometer to measure the continuous spectrum and fit it using the ideal blackbody radiation formula,” Bao tells the journal Device. “This technique includes a simple calibration step to eliminate temperature- and wavelength-dependent emissivity.” Read more.

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing PFAS from soil. Photo via Rice University

Houston chemist earns $12M grant to support innovative soil pollutant removal process

making moves

Traditionally PFAS have been difficult to remove by conventional methods. However, Tour and the team of researchers have been developing this REM process, which heats contaminated soil to 1,000 C in seconds and converts it into nontoxic calcium fluoride efficiently while also preserving essential soil properties.

The funding will help Tour and the team scale the innovative REM process to treat large volumes of soil. The team also plans to use the process to perform urban mining of electronic and industrial waste and further develop a “flash-within-flash” heating technology to synthesize materials in bulk, according to Rice.

“This research advances scientific understanding but also provides practical solutions to critical environmental challenges, promising a cleaner, safer world,” Christopher Griggs, a senior research physical scientist at the ERDC, said in the statement.

Also this month, Tour and his research team published a report in Nature Communications detailing another innovative heating technique that can remove purified active materials from lithium-ion battery waste, which can lead to a cleaner production of electric vehicles, according to Rice.

“With the surge in battery use, particularly in EVs, the need for developing sustainable recycling methods is pressing,” Tour said in a statement.

Similar to the REM process, this technique known as flash Joule heating (FJH) heats waste to 2,500 Kelvin within seconds, which allows for efficient purification through magnetic separation.

This research was also supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Rice Academy Fellowship.

Last year, a fellow Rice research team earned a grant related to soil in the energy transition. Mark Torres, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences; and Evan Ramos, a postdoctoral fellow in the Torres lab; were given a three-year grant from the Department of Energy to investigate the processes that allow soil to store roughly three times as much carbon as organic matter compared to Earth's atmosphere.

By analyzing samples from the East River Watershed, the team aims to understand if "Earth’s natural mechanisms of sequestering carbon to combat climate change," Torres said in a statement.

From opioid research to plastics recycling, here are three research projects to watch out for in Houston. Photo via Getty Images

Here are 3 breakthrough innovations coming out of research at Houston institutions

Research Roundup

Research, perhaps now more than ever, is crucial to expanding and growing innovation in Houston — and it's happening across the city right under our noses.

In InnovationMap's latest roundup of research projects, we look into studies on robotics advancing stroke patient rehabilitation, the future of opioid-free surgery, and a breakthrough in recycling plastics.

The University of Houston's research on enhancing stroke rehabilitation

A clinical trial from a team at UH found that stroke survivors gained clinically significant arm movement and control by using an external robotic device powered by the patients' own brains. Image via UH.edu

A researcher at the University of Houston has seen positive results on using his robotics on stroke survivors for rehabilitation. Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, director of UH's Non-Invasive Brain Machine Interface Systems Laboratory, recently published the results of the clinical trial in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical.

The testing proved that most patients retained the benefits for at least two months after the therapy sessions ended, according to a press release from UH, and suggested even more potential in the long term. The study equipped stroke survivors who have limited movement in one arm with a computer program that captures brain activity to determine the subject's intentions and then works with a robotic device affixed to the affected arm, to move in response to those intentions.

"This is a novel way to measure what is going on in the brain in response to therapeutic intervention," says Dr. Gerard Francisco, professor and chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and co-principal investigator, in the release.

"This study suggested that certain types of intervention, in this case using the upper robot, can trigger certain parts of brain to develop the intention to move," he continues. "In the future, this means we can augment existing therapy programs by paying more attention to the importance of engaging certain parts of the brain that can magnify the response to therapy."

The trial was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and Mission Connect, part of the TIRR Foundation. Contreras-Vidal is working on a longer term project with a National Science Foundation grant in order to design a low-cost system that would allow people to continue the treatments at home.

"If we are able to send them home with a device, they can use it for life," he says in the release.

Baylor College of Medicine's work toward opioid-free surgery

A local doctor is focused on opioid-free options. Photo via Getty Images

In light of a national opioid crisis and more and more data demonstrating the negative effects of the drugs, a Baylor College of Medicine orthopedic surgeon has been working to offer opioid-free surgery recovery to his patients.

"Thanks to a number of refinements, we are now able to perform hip and knee replacements, ranging from straightforward to very complex cases, without patients requiring a single opioid pill," says Dr. Mohamad Halawi, associate professor and chief quality officer in the Joseph Barnhart Department of Orthopedic Surgery, in a press release.

"Pain is one of patients' greatest fears when undergoing surgery, understandably so," Halawi continues. "Today, most patients wake up from surgery very comfortable. Gone are the days of trying to catch up with severe pain. It was a vicious cycle with patients paying the price in terms of longer hospitalization, slower recovery and myriad adverse events."

Halawi explains that his work focuses on preventative measures ahead of pain occurring as well as cutting out opioids before surgery.

"Opioid-free surgery is the way of the future, and it has become a standard of care in my practice," he says. "The ability to provide safer and faster recovery to all patients regardless of their surgical complexity is gratifying. I want to make sure that pain is one less thing for patients to worry about during their recovery."

Rice University's breakthrough on recycling plastics

A team of scientists have found a use for a material that comes out of plastics recycling. Photo via Rice.edu

Houston scientists has found a new use for an otherwise useless byproduct that comes from recycling plastics. Rice University chemist James Tour has discovered that turbostratic graphene flakes can be produced from pyrolyzed plastic ash, and those flakes can then be added to other substances like films of polyvinyl alcohol that better resist water in packaging and cement paste and concrete, as well as strengthen the material.

"This work enhances the circular economy for plastics," Tour says in a press release. "So much plastic waste is subject to pyrolysis in an effort to convert it back to monomers and oils. The monomers are used in repolymerization to make new plastics, and the oils are used in a variety of other applications. But there is always a remaining 10% to 20% ash that's valueless and is generally sent to landfills.

Tour's research has appeared in the journal Carbon. The co-authors of the study include Rice graduate students Jacob Beckham, Weiyin Chen and Prabhas Hundi and postdoctoral researcher Duy Xuan Luong, and Shivaranjan Raghuraman and Rouzbeh Shahsavari of C-Crete Technologies. The National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Department of Energy supported the research.

"Recyclers do not turn large profits due to cheap oil prices, so only about 15% of all plastic gets recycled," said Rice graduate student Kevin Wyss, lead author of the study. "I wanted to combat both of these problems."

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World's largest student startup competition names teams for 2025 Houston event

ready, set, pitch

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has announced the 42 student-led teams worldwide that will compete in the 25th annual Rice Business Plan Competition this spring.

The highly competitive event, known as one of the world’s largest and richest intercollegiate student startup challenges, will take place April 10–12 at Houston's The Ion. Teams in this year's competition represent 34 universities from four countries, including one team from Rice.

Graduate student-led teams from colleges or universities around the world will present their plans before more than 300 angel, venture capital, and corporate investors to compete for more than $1 million in prizes. Last year, top teams were awarded $1.5 million in investment and cash prizes.

The 2025 invitees include:

3rd-i, University of Miami
AG3 Labs, Michigan State University
Arcticedge Technologies, University of Waterloo
Ark Health, University of Chicago
Automatic AI, University of Mississippi and University of New Orleans
Bobica Bars, Rowan University
Carbon Salary, Washington University in St. Louis
Carmine Minerals, California State University, San Bernardino
Celal-Mex, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education
CELLECT Laboratories, University of Waterloo
ECHO Solutions, University of Houston
EDUrain, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Eutrobac, University of California, Santa Cruz
FarmSmart.ai, Louisiana State University
Fetal Therapy Technologies, Johns Hopkins University
GreenLIB Materials, University of Ottawa
Humimic Biosystems, University of Arkansas
HydroHaul, Harvard University
Intero Biosystems, University of Michigan
Interplay, University of Missouri-Kansas City
MabLab, Harvard University
Microvitality, Tufts University
Mito Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University
Motmot, Michigan State University
Mud Rat, University of Connecticut
Nanoborne, University of Texas at Austin
NerView Surgical, McMaster University
NeuroFore, Washington University in St. Louis
Novus, Stanford University
OAQ, University of Toronto
Parthian Baattery Solutions, Columbia University
Pattern Materials, Rice University
Photon Queue, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
re.solution, RWTH Aachen University
Rise Media, Yale University
Rivulet, University of Cambridge and Dartmouth College
Sabana, Carnegie Mellon University
SearchOwl, Case Western Reserve University
Six Carbons, Indiana University
Songscription, Stanford University
Watermarked.ai, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Xatoms, University of Toronto

This year's group joins more than 868 RBPC alums that have raised more than $6.1 billion in capital with 59 successful exits, according to the Rice Alliance.

Last year, Harvard's MesaQuantum, which was developing accurate and precise chip-scale clocks, took home the biggest sum of $335,000. While not named as a finalist, the team secured the most funding across a few prizes.

Protein Pints, a high-protein, low-sugar ice cream product from Michigan State University, won first place and the $150,000 GOOSE Capital Investment Grand Prize, as well as other prizes, bringing its total to $251,000.

Tesla recalling more than 375,000 vehicles due to power steering issue

Tesla Talk

Tesla is recalling more than 375,000 vehicles due to a power steering issue.

The recall is for certain 2023 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles operating software prior to 2023.38.4, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The printed circuit board for the electronic power steering assist may become overstressed, causing a loss of power steering assist when the vehicle reaches a stop and then accelerates again, the agency said.

The loss of power could required more effort to control the car by drivers, particularly at low speeds, increasing the risk of a crash.

Tesla isn't aware of any crashes, injuries, or deaths related to the condition.

The electric vehicle maker headed by Elon Musk has released a free software update to address the issue.

Letters are expected to be sent to vehicle owners on March 25. Owners may contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752 or the NHTSA at 1-888-327-4236.

Houston space tech companies land $25 million from Texas commission

Out Of This World

Two Houston aerospace companies have collectively received $25 million in grants from the Texas Space Commission.

Starlab Space picked up a $15 million grant, and Intuitive Machines gained a $10 million grant, according to a Space Commission news release.

Starlab Space says the money will help it develop the Systems Integration Lab in Webster, which will feature two components — the main lab and a software verification facility. The integration lab will aid creation of Starlab’s commercial space station.

“To ensure the success of our future space missions, we are starting with state-of-the-art testing facilities that will include the closest approximation to the flight environment as possible and allow us to verify requirements and validate the design of the Starlab space station,” Starlab CEO Tim Kopra said in a news release.

Starlab’s grant comes on top of a $217.5 million award from NASA to help eventually transition activity from the soon-to-be-retired International Space Station to new commercial destinations.

Intuitive Machines is a space exploration, infrastructure and services company. Among its projects are a lunar lander designed to land on the moon and a lunar rover designed for astronauts to travel on the moon’s surface.

The grants come from the Space Commission’s Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund, which recently awarded $47.7 million to Texas companies.

Other recipients were:

Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace, which received $8.2 million
Brownsville-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which received $7.5 million
Van Horn-based Blue Origin, which received $7 million

Gwen Griffin, chair of the commission, says the grants “will support Texas companies as we grow commercial, military, and civil aerospace activity across the state.”

State lawmakers established the commission in 2023, along with the Texas Aerospace Research & Space Economy Consortium, to bolster the state’s space industry.

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