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Guirec is a serial entrepreneur for 10 years, joined the project to lead the operations and contribute to product development and market entry strategy.
Elsa was an R&D engineer and project manager at IFPEN until December 2022. She has been working part-time on the So-Sponge project since 2020 and is now working full-time.
Melaz, the project's originator, is an associate professor in Process Engineering at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, affiliated with the Laboratory of Automatic Control, Process Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Engineering (LAGEPP) within the DYCOP team (Process Dynamics, Control, and Observability). Through a Scientific Contest contract, she joined the project on a part-time basis.
So Sponge was born from the collaboration between two researchers: Mélaz Tayakout, professor at UCBL, and Elsa Jolimaitre, research engineer at IFPEN.
Their work focuses on transition aluminas, porous materials based on aluminum oxide, commonly used as active phase supports in heterogeneous catalysis for industrial chemical reactors (refining, petrochemicals, etc.).
However, these materials have another property: the ability to condense gases below their saturating vapor pressure by confinement in mesopores.
They then considered a new application by diverting this use. By exploiting the affinity of these solids for water vapor, they decided to use their thermodynamic properties to capture this vapor via capillary condensation.
By putting these solids in contact with the ambient air, their idea was to regulate humidity spontaneously and without external energy input, capturing water above a certain relative humidity threshold and returning it below—like a sponge with liquid water.
The project was selected as part of the “Tech4Earth” call for projects, supported jointly by PULSALYS and the University of Lyon, thus making it possible to validate the concept and file a patent in May 2021.
The Pulsalys incubation program supports innovative projects resulting from academic research and higher education. Thanks to this system, So Sponge has benefited from tailor-made support, access to financing and a network of partners.
During the incubation phase in 2022, the two co-founders welcomed Guirec Courbon, who took charge of structuring the entrepreneurial project, thus leading to the official launch of So Sponge in early 2023.
Provide simple, robust and sustainable humidity control solutions.
