Elk Grove startup Soar Optics has been named a regional winner in the Cleantech Open accelerator competition, and it will be in the running for the national top prize next week.
The company is developing rapid surface chemical analysis tools to detect microplastics in water.
The timing of the competition is good, said CEO Steve Barnett, because Soar Optics is preparing to raise investor money and the competition is high profile. The top award is $50,000.
The State Water Resources Control Board last month mandated that California water agencies test for microplastics in drinking water. Barnett said other water authorities are likely to follow.
Microplastics are showing up everywhere, Barnett said. They have been detected in places as remote as the top of Mount Everest and on the continent of Antarctica, as well as in oceans and water systems all over the world, he said.
Los Angeles-based Cleantech Open is a nonprofit that has been supporting early-stage clean technology companies since 2005. Its annual flagship event is the Global Forum, which this year will run next Tuesday through Thursday in San Jose.
Barnett has been working on the launch of Soar Optics since the start of the year. It really is a startup, since it just got its incorporation papers, as a Delaware company, in August.
Soar Optics has been in stealth mode through most of this year, Barnett said, and he declined to discuss its technology in detail.
The company does disclose that it uses optical methods to identify and measure microplastics in water using Raman spectroscopy.
Raman spectroscopy is named after Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, the Indian physicist who discovered an effect that physicists can use to identify materials. Raman won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.
Barnett since 2015 has been general manager of InnoGrove, a coworking office in Elk Grove. He’s had his own consulting company, Barnett Technical Services, for 12 years. He’s worked more than 20 years in compound analysis. He has a doctorate in chemistry from McGill University in Montreal, according to his LinkedIn page.
