Toby’s Nose Filters, a small business in Merritt Island, Fla., was in need of technical assistance for a new nose filter that they had in development. The business owner, Toby McCormick, was excited to learn from a friend employed at NASA that a program existed that could provide him with the assistance he needed to make his new product a reality. “When I said I wished that I could get ‘NASA engineering expertise,’ I never dreamed that I could get exactly that – and at no cost to my business!” said McCormick.

That’s how McCormick found out about SATOP. Through SATOP, McCormick would receive free assistance from a university or company within the aerospace industry to solve a problem that his business was facing. He wasted no time getting in touch with the SATOP Center in Florida who paired him with one of the program’s Space Alliance Partners, the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).

Toby’s Nose Filters had already developed an apparatus that can be inserted in a person’s nose to filter debris, dust, pollen, etc. while allowing air to flow smoothly. The nose filter will allow people working in dusty and smoky environments, or people with allergies, to breath without being affected by particles in the air. However, McCormick wanted to make his product even more beneficial by developing a “dual-filter” that would also filter out offensive odors. The quest was a personal one for McCormick as well, because he was often bothered by the odor of second-hand cigarette smoke. His Request for Technical Assistance (RTA) focused on the question, “What can I put into my filter that will alleviate offensive odors?”
The RTA was directed to a professor at SUNY-ESF who specialized in chemical engineering and the filtration and absorption abilities of fibrous materials – Bandaru Ramarao. Ramarao got in touch with McCormick and began discussing the use of carbon as an odor-absorbing element. “Based on work I am familiar with, my idea was to impregnate the carbon with materials which would effectively absorb odors,” said Ramarao.

Based on his knowledge and experiments on the behavior of filter materials, Ramarao began investigating a novel filter medium that would enable McCormick to enhance the performance of his product. McCormick’s quest was now the shared quest of an expert in the field – exactly what McCormick had hoped for and achieved though contacting SATOP. After toiling with different possibilities for a solution, Ramarao decided that the use of “activated carbon” would do the job. The method involves taking fibers from another material and heating them so that when carbon is added, the carbon will bond to the fibers, making the fibers odor absorbent. These carbon filaments can now be put into the original filter to make a dual-filter that would not only filter out dust, pollen and smoke, but offensive odors as well. By capturing the odor molecules in the carbon filaments, users of the dual-filter, especially McCormick, will not be bothered by second-hand smoke or potent perfumes.
“We feel our nose filters can be benefit many people by providing them with cleaner air,” said McCormick.

However, Ramarao’s assistance didn’t stop there. He introduced McCormick to Professor George Chase at the University of Akron, Ohio who was able to provide him with a list of manufacturers that had the capabilities to produce his dual-filter – three in the U.S. and one in Germany.

McCormick says response to the dual-filter has been unprecedented. “As a result of being able to produce this filter, we have uncovered a source of prospective buyers that we never knew existed,” says McCormick. “Many people are offended by second-hand smoke and perfumes, so our new dual-filter has even more applications, and therefore, increased salability.”
With his RTA solved by SATOP within only three months, Toby’s Nose Filters has enhanced its product line and is much more productive. McCormick is now looking for investors to increase the size of his company and also plans to begin mass-production and marketing for the dual-filter.
“The personal assistance I received from the SATOP Space Alliance engineer was incredible. SATOP made sure the communication lines were always open and my whole experience with the program was easy and beneficial,” says McCormick. This is simple an example of another satisfied small business owner and another technical challenge solved, thanks to SATOP.