self-assembling-polymers
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Fluid Efficiency
Fluid Efficiency is a Caltech spin-out that builds MegaSupraMolecules (MSMs), self-assembling polymers that change how fluids move. Its flagship product is a removable drag-reducing agent for natural gas liquids (NGL) pipelines - a fluid class where conventional drag reducers can't be used because leftover polymer fouls downstream fractionation equipment. By letting the additive be removed before sensitive processing, Fluid Efficiency helps midstream operators push more volume through existing pipelines without building new ones. The same polymer platform also reduces fuel misting (and the explosion risk that comes with it), improves lubricant viscosity, and aids long-distance pumping of crude and refined products.
Simon Jones
Simon Jones is the founder and CEO of Fluid Efficiency, a Caltech spin-out commercializing 'megasupramolecules' (MSMs), self-assembling polymers that make fuels harder to ignite in a crash and oil cheaper to push through a pipeline. An Oxford-trained inorganic chemist who spent years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jones is the industrial chemist who took a decades-old academic dream of safer jet fuel and figured out how to actually manufacture it at scale. He has collaborated with the original Caltech research team behind the technology since 2008.