Clean Energy Challenge aims to prove there's money in being green

That sign in your hotel room that suggests reusing your towel to help the environment? Gary Eden wants to make it a relic of the past.

"We've all been putting thousands of tons of chlorine containing chemicals into our water," said Eden, president of EP Purification. "It's in our swimming pools, it's in our bathtubs, it's everywhere."

His solution: ozone.

By super-oxygenating water, said Eden, commercial laundry facilities like the kinds used in prisons, nursing homes and hotels can save tens of thousands of dollars, cut the use of chemicals in half, reduce drying times and save energy by eliminating the need for hot water.

The Champaign-based startup walked away with $100,000 at Thursday's Clean Energy Challenge in Chicago after holding up a palm-size aluminum card with the power to pump ozone into 60 gallons of water per minute to destroy bacteria.

"The ozone does the washing," said Eden, who estimated that three 80-pound commercial washers, each armed with the company's $500-$1,000 device, would save a 400-room hotel $25,000 a year, cutting its washing costs in about half.

EP Purification was among 15 nascent companies that vied for $500,000 in prizes at the event, hosted by the Clean Energy Trust, a Chicago-based nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the development of clean energy businesses in the Midwest.

The event, now in its fourth year, allows companies to show venture capitalists that their ideas can make the world a cleaner place and make money at the same time. Clean Energy Challenge finalists have raised more than $40 million in outside investment.

"These entrepreneurs have invented devices to change the way we create and use energy, services that lower utility bills and streamline the energy sector and new technologies for biofuels, microgrids and energy storage," said Amy Francetic, chief executive of Clean Energy Trust. "These prizes will help these entrepreneurs to move their technologies out of the laboratory and into the marketplace."

Student teams that previously won state-level competitions and early stage firms picked by an industry panel pitched technology to turn manure from factory farms into electricity and grease from summer barbecues into biodiesel fuel. One firm pitched a solution for cubicle-dwellers tired of offices that are always too hot or too cold: a system that controls temperature on a room-by-room basis using smart dampers and wireless controls.

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Clean Energy Challenge aims to prove there's money in being green