Decontamination is the process of purposively removal of dangerous contaminants from people, equipment, and the environment (indoor and/or outdoor). It involves a combination of physical and chemical procedures that are used to remove the soiling and inactivate/destroy the target CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radioactive, Nuclear) or Hazmat (Hazard Material) agent.
At the moment technological solutions to the problem of having mild and non-corrosive decontamination systems for equipment, casualties and large areas exposed to CBRN agents, in particular for Chemical Warfare Agents (CWA), are not available. Among the arsenal of CWA, nerve agents have played a dominant role since World War II and because of their simple chemistry and inexpensive raw materials for manufacturing, today they are still used as low-cost agents in terror acts, as recent events in Middle Est demonstrated.
Detoxizymes srls is a biotech start-up that aims at providing a biotechnological solution, based on stable biocatalysts, to the problem of CWA threat, namely the sensing, identification and the detoxification/decontamination of nerve agents from public areas, people and critical infrastructures subsequent to an aggressive deliberate act.
We have successfully tested our technology on small scale and we intend to continue with research and development activities in order to confirm the efficacy of the system on large scale. We believe that our system, opportunely optimized, will represent the all-inclusive solution that governments and institutions have been actively searching for years.
In the INNOPROCITI project the main objective has been the setup of a feasibility plan to have an idea of the market, its growing forecast, the barriers to the entry and to quantitate through a real business plan the economic needs to bring a product on the market within a three-five years timeframe.
