#SoCaltech: Leopold Dobelle

Leopold Dobelle prepares a bench scale reactor to run an experiment studying the performance of a chemical sorbent targeting carbon dioxide. Photo: Bob Paz

“I shifted from working with water to working with gas, and it was a semi-big jump. I have a mechanical engineering background. With the subject I'm working on, decarbonization, it's a lot about design and prototyping—building stuff. Whether it's for water or gas application, it's the same way of thinking, just different constraints along the way. But I did have to learn a new field of expertise: how to safely build a chemical reactor rather than just an electrolyzer. We're using a gas–solid process to capture and concentrate carbon dioxide from point-source emissions—think flue gases emitted from a natural gas power plant. Our team obtained crucial funding from the Resnick Sustainability Institute, some from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the San Pietro Global Warming Mid-Stage Innovation Fund through Caltech, which is a fund that rewards decarbonization projects. Stephanie Yanchinsky, the Resnick Institute’s director of entrepreneurial programs, really helped us find some partners and start our company, C-Quester, Inc. Today, we are collaborating with an industrial partner to scale up our innovative capture system.

We also did the NSF’s ZAP and BOOM programs through the Resnick Institute, which were a big resource. You have mentors that teach you about customer discovery and how to better approach your business plan. Now we are part of the NSF Innovation-Corps [I-Corps] national program, which allowed us to meet other start-up founders and a network of investors, alumni, mentors, and especially more partners. It's a hundred interviews with in seven weeks, and we’re starting in February. It's going to be a lot of work, but that's going to allow us to spread the word, talk to some more customers, and get some more feedback about our process.”

Leopold Dobelle, a staff scientist in the lab of Michael Hoffmann, the John S. and Sherry Chen Professor of Environmental Science, discusses the process of launching the start-up C-Quester with his colleagues Clément Cid (MS ’14, PhD ’18) and Alan Gu (MS, PhD ’22).

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.