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The Tesla Of Air Purifiers: An Interview With Molekule CEO Jaya Rao

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The roaring wildfires in Oregon burned more than one million acres in September of 2020. According to most outlets the air quality in Portland was hazardously the worst on the planet. We consulted with HVAC specialists about keeping the highest quality air in our home while hopeful the fires would subside.

The EPA states that the effects of smoke from wildfires can range from eye and respiratory tract irritation to more serious disorders like exacerbation of asthma and heart failure. I kept my Albuterol within reach while my wife was suffering from headaches for nearly a week.

In an effort to reduce the smell of the smoke we sealed areas where air was leaking inside the home. The air purifier with the HEPA filter we had was meant to filter particles, but we weren’t sure how impactful it was. After further research, we learned that a HEPA filter only solves part of the problem. It was not designed to address the gaseous pollutants like carcinogenic VOCs that come from wildfire smoke.

We discovered a device called Molekule that’s technically in the air purification category – but we call it our pollutant destroyer. Unlike the traditional purifiers, it uses what they’ve coined PECO technology (Photo Electrochemical Oxidation) to destroy organic pollutants like VOCs, viruses, and bacteria at the molecular level.

After we turned on the Molekule devices in our home, the built-in particle sensor detected a high level of particle matter in most of the rooms. It took about four hours to indicate the particle levels lowered. It was convenient to have the devices synched to the app which felt like a Nest-like experience. By the next day my wife’s headaches were gone and she said the home smelled like Lake Tahoe.

I’d read that the original technology was designed by Dr. Yogi Goswami while at the University of Florida, with the intention to alleviate his son’s debilitating asthma and allergies. His son, Dilip, is the President and CTO. I wanted to learn more about the origin story of Molekule through the lens of Dilip’s sister and now CEO of Molekule, Jaya Rao.

“When we were young I remember my dad going to the hospital to explore new solutions to try to help Dilip. He’d bring home prototypes and put them in my brother’s room to purify the air. I knew my dad was working on something but I didn’t know the extent of it at the time,” Jaya recalled during out interview.

Jaya’s experience came full circle. After earning her masters in mechanical engineering from Stanford, she moved back to Florida to work in public policy. Suddenly, she began experiencing terrible migraine headaches and she couldn’t figure out why.

“I didn’t think my migraines were related to the air quality, but one week after my dad brought home a prototype my headaches went away. I went from being a skeptic to a big believer,” Jaya recalled.

Jaya grew up in a house chalk full of science. Her mother was a chemist and Dr. Goswami being a renowned thought leader in the area of renewable energy. He was also nominated for the Global Energy Prize in 2017 alongside Elon Musk.

I asked Jaya about the biggest misconceptions to help me cut through the noisy air purifier market. “The biggest misunderstanding is that most people think they are air purifiers when they are really air filters. HEPA was invented in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project to help remove radioactive materials from the air. Todays pollutants we’re thinking about have gone unaddressed in a holistic way. We don’t just filter the air, we destroy the microscopic pollutants in the air. That becomes the real step into air purification,” Jaya explained.

The FDA recently granted Molekule 510(k) Class II Medical Device Clearance for Air Pro RX which is intended to be used in a medical environment to help destroy bacteria and viruses in the air. It’s a significant product validation after going through much rigor to receive the clearance.

Molekule is still a relatively young company tackling innovation in an industry that hasn’t seen much progress in 80 years. Similar to the automotive industry, the first Tesla debuted 100 years after the Ford Model T released in 1908. Molekule is the Tesla of air purification.

“In the metacontext of the company, we’re often feeling like the underdog taking on a gigantic industry because every other air purifier uses HEPA filters,” Jaya stated.

What often gets lost in history is that when Wright brothers invented the first motor-operated airplane, they were the underdogs taking on rivals who had more resources and financial backing than they could imagine. They ran a bicycle shop and lived in a home with no electricity – but their passion and rigor helped them achieve the extraordinary.

Molekule is on a mission to solve global air pollution. Coincidentally, Dr. Gaswami’s prototype was invented to destroy the pollutants in the air so his son could breathe. While they may be the underdogs – they are addressing clean air with a fundamentally different approach but with the same passion and rigor as the luminaries before them.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Jaya Rao

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