New Sky Energy’s Journey: How a Small Team Built Big Impact With SulfurSolve and Innovative Clean Technologies
Written by Wyles Daniel
When Dr. Deane Little founded New Sky Energy, his vision was to bring chemistry and entrepreneurship together to solve some of the world’s toughest environmental challenges. Nearly two decades later, the Colorado-based company has grown from a lab experiment into an award-winning clean energy business with a global footprint, patents spanning three continents, and a reputation for making renewable energy both practical and profitable.
“We started with an idea that seemed almost too bold,” Little reflects. “Could we take waste gases and turn them into useful products? It wasn’t an easy road, but every challenge brought us closer to real breakthroughs.”
New Sky Energy’s first project was a patented chemical technology that converts carbon dioxide into clean hydrogen as a co-product. While the chemistry was sound, the process required too much electricity to be economically feasible at the time. Instead of giving up, Little and his team pivoted, setting their sights on another critical challenge: hydrogen sulfide.
Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is a toxic, foul-smelling gas that occurs in natural gas and biogas streams from dairies, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and pulp and paper mills. It is lethal at low concentrations and costly to remove with conventional methods. “We realized that solving hydrogen sulfide at scale would make renewable natural gas far more viable,” Little says. “That’s how SulfurSolve was born.”
Discovered in 2018, SulfurSolve is New Sky Energy’s flagship technology, an iron-based, alkaline solution that scrubs hydrogen sulfide from gas streams and converts it into elemental sulfur. Unlike conventional single-use H2S scavengers, which create hazardous waste when used, SulfurSolve regenerates itself simply by bubbling air through the solution. This reduces chemical purchasing and disposal costs while producing a safe byproduct that can be used as fertilizer.
“SulfurSolve is designed to be a win-win,” Little emphasizes. “We’ve developed it to help save our customers’ money, keep dangerous gases out of the environment, and create a useful resource instead of waste.” The technology has already been deployed in many plants across the United States, including dairies in Colorado, Minnesota, Texas, and Kansas, as well as landfills in Florida.
Scaling from early lab tests that used pint-sized volumes to tanker trucks shipping nationwide, the company has proven its ability to operate at commercial scale. The solution, Little notes, can be safely transported and handled, with most of its components considered food-safe in isolation.
Beyond SulfurSolve, New Sky Energy has explored additional product lines and technologies. Its chemistry platform extends to iron oxide nanoparticles and potential applications in iron flow batteries for renewable energy storage. “We believe our iron-based chemistry could be transformative in grid-scale batteries,” Little explains. “Iron is inexpensive, abundant, and safe, ideal for storing energy from solar or wind farms.”
While innovation is central to New Sky Energy’s identity, the company has also built a business model that emphasizes agility and profitability. Rather than building gas processing plants themselves, New Sky Energy partners with engineering firms that design and construct facilities, while providing specialized chemicals and expertise. This approach has kept the company lean, flexible, and profitable even as it expands.
Today, New Sky Energy holds patents in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Applications have also been filed in Africa, Australia, South America, and Canada. “We are small, but we are global,” Little says. “In the next five years, we expect our number of plants to triple, possibly even grow tenfold.”
The industries served are diverse: dairies with biogas digesters, municipal wastewater facilities, landfills, pulp and paper mills, and potentially geothermal power and oil and gas. Each represents an independent opportunity to not only reduce harmful emissions but also to replace fossil fuels with renewable natural gas. “Every ton of manure or trash we help convert into renewable biomethane is a ton of waste turned into clean energy,” Little says.
At the heart of New Sky Energy’s growth is its mission to align environmental sustainability with business success. By solving a critical problem for industries, the company enables them to lower their carbon footprint, qualify for renewable energy subsidies, and cut operational costs. “Sustainability and profitability are closely aligned,” Little notes. “If you recycle and reuse valuable chemicals, you are saving your customers money while protecting the environment.”
Looking forward, Little sees both challenge and opportunity. The transition to renewable energy is accelerating worldwide, but legacy fossil industries remain entrenched. For New Sky Energy, the focus is on continuing to innovate and expanding its solutions globally. “Renewable energy is the future,” Little states. “It’s already cheaper, cleaner, and more competitive than fossil fuels. Our work is just one piece of a larger global shift.”
For a company that began with a bold experiment and nearly two decades of perseverance, New Sky’s story is far from over. From solving the problem of hydrogen sulfide to exploring the potential of iron-based batteries, the company continues to prove that science and vision can create both business success and a cleaner planet.
