Separation Design Group is an independent research company focused on energy efficient technologies to support industrial, medical, and commercial product development. The company’s mission is to promote a sustainable relationship between humans, technology and the environment.

As a small business and independent laboratory in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, SDGroup represents everything that the SBIR program is meant to support. The basic gas separations research and development done at SDGroup over the last 8 years is now being commercialized in medical devices. A non-medical commercial product embodying the same technology is also under development. They have leveraged their success in obtaining SBIR awards to secure state, local, and private funding to create a world class facility and provide jobs for highly skilled scientists, engineers and technicians. To date, SDGroup has 2 issued patents and 3 patents pending.

Since its founding in 2003 the company has worked primarily on developing very small, lightweight, portable oxygen concentrators. Early research was supported by National Science Foundation SBIR. These projects proved the concepts of ultrarapid cycle adsorption and developed instruments to evaluate and quantify the performance of materials necessary to the process. Subsequent work supported by National Institutes of Health STTR grants led to the development of oxygen generator components that are now being incorporated into wound therapy and respiratory therapy medical devices. SDGroup is also designing a non-medical consumer version of the oxygen technology for sports, fitness and high altitude uses.

In addition to the oxygen technology, SDGroup has ongoing projects and intellectual property in the renewable and sustainable energy sector, including a heat pump that has applications in drying, silent propulsion, solar thermal energy conversion, and combined heat and power. The company has also analyzed the effects of weathering on Marcellus shale drill cuttings for the National Energy Technology laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia. These projects all take advantage of the extensive laboratory facilities that SDGroup has assembled in its repurposed 52,000 sq. ft. facility located in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.

SDGroup gratefully acknowledges the invaluable support it has received from its employees and investors and from federal, state, and local groups including the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Innovation Works, Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, The University of Pittsburgh Small Business Development Center, Catalyst Connection, Waynesburg University and the Waynesburg University Keystone Innovation Zone and the County of Greene, Pennsylvania.