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Reactive Entrepreneur
by staff on 19 December 2006, 00:00 

Michael Lefenfeld, 26, is already building his second business and co-founding his third. But then he’s always been entrepreneurial. As a chemical- and materials-engineering student at WashingtonUniversity, Michael Lefenfeld set out to improve a medical device for extra credit, and ended up creating a technology that was later purchased by an undisclosed company. After graduating in 2001, he worked at Bell Labs and DuPont before starting LB Developments to help bring technologies to market.

Six months later, Mr. Lefenfeld was chasing another idea, inspired by his grandfather’s request for a better bathroom deodorizer. In creating it, Mr. Lefenfeld and Jim Dye, a retired professor from MichiganStateUniversity, ended up inventing a powder to stabilize alkali metals widely used in the pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries. In 2003, they launched SiGNa Chemistry to develop and license the material, and rounded up customers like Pfizer, Shell Chemical, and BASF.

The stabilizers enable reactions to happen in room temperatures—requiring less energy—and in inert conditions, eliminating danger of fire or oxidation, Mr. Lefenfeld says. The materials also can be made using continuous manufacturing processes, replacing some currently made in smaller, more expensive batches, he says. It’s an area with significant potential, and one attracting investors and large chemical companies alike, says Rob Day, a principal at Expansion Capital Partners.

But Mr. Day says companies like SiGNa face growing pains, including a long sales cycle and initial cost disadvantages. “There’s trepidation as we’re still learning the effect of nanoscale on basic chemical reactions,” he says. “You can have a hard time penetrating those opportunities even when you have a winning product.”

In the meantime, SiGNa is expanding its product line. Last year, the company began selling a sodium-silicide powder that reacts with water to produce hydrogen gas for fuel cells. Now SiGNa is developing catalytic metals that can be reused, as well as stabilizing transition metals that make carbon bonds. It plans to launch those materials—and turn a profit—next year.  —Jennifer Kho