September 2, 2025 · Entrepreneurs, Innovation, Program Impact, Stories
Meet the Founders: Innovate Alabama Supplemental Grant Recipient Aqueous Resources
As part of Innovate Alabama’s mission to support high-growth, high-impact startups across the state, the SBIR/STTR Supplemental Grant Program provides matching funds to Alabama companies that have received federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards.
In the most recent round of funding, Innovate Alabama awarded $3.3 million to 20 companies across the state. These founders are building the future — right here in Alabama.
Get to know them in our “Meet the Founders” Q&A series.
Company: Aqueous Resources LLC
Founders: Ernst Schmidt, Scott Taylor
City: Bessemer, AL
Q&A with Dr. Michael Zabala, XO Armor
In simple terms, what does your company do?
We have a patented technology that extracts lithium from super salty brine water. We use an electrochemical approach, which can do a substantial amount of the heavy lifting up front without using fresh water or chemicals. Think of it as a high-tech Brita filter that pulls lithium out of wastewater from oil and gas wells in the Southern and Northeastern U.S.
Why are you building and growing your business in Alabama?
The first reason we chose Bessemer as our technical headquarters is the quality of staff and facilities of Sand Spirit, a local research and development company. Sand Spirit co-founders Mark Tegen and Rusty Sutterlin have unique chemical process facilities and experience with advanced continuous chromatography techniques. There are only a handful of Americans who have these facilities and expertise. The second reason is geography – Bessemer is near the University of Alabama’s Tuscaloosa campus, which has built the world class Alabama Mobility and Power (“AMP”) consortium. AMP connects our company with four of the largest electric vehicle manufacturers: Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota. Further, this location has access to compelling, hardworking engineers who are looking to build exciting careers and participate in the creation of a domestic American critical minerals industry.
Tell us about a recent success that you are particularly proud of.
We are very proud of the successful lithium brine processing tests we performed with Albemarle, SQM and Rio Tinto. We are ecstatic that each of these large companies sent technical experts from North Carolina, Santiago, Chile, and Melbourne, Australia to visit our processing facility in Bessemer.
How will the Innovate Alabama SBIR/STTR matching funds help your company?
This grant funding lets us devote the necessary engineering resources to build our first field pilot system. Additionally, this provides us resources to validate our patented technology on our first American lithium brine source.
What’s next for your business?
We are preparing for a SEED round capital raise of $2.5 million. We are also working towards signing a contract with a large-end user, which will provide certainty around our first field pilot program.
Aqueous Resources was featured in the Birmingham Business Journal earlier this year. Check out the full story here.
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