Dr. Nair is a Chemical Engineer with nearly two decades of experience in developing and commercializing chemical technologies across the industrial gases, specialty chemicals, electronics, and pharmaceutical industries. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Auburn University in 2005, specializing in separation technologies with a focus on adsorption and catalytic materials. His research has been published in leading journals and presented at major conferences, including AIChE and ACS.

An expert in computational process modeling, material characterization, and scaling chemical processes from lab to commercial production, his work focused in bridging the gap between research and application while promoting sustainable practices.

Before Hydron, he held R&D and engineering roles at Praxair Inc. (now Linde Engineering), DuPont (later Chemours), Air Products, and EMD Electronics. At Praxair, he led the development of hydrogen pressure swing adsorption technologies, advancing them from bench-scale research to full-scale commercial deployment. In the pharmaceutical sector, he managed technology transfers, process optimization, and the integration of new products into API manufacturing. He has experience developing processes involving high temperatures, high pressures, and highly reactive materials, including fluorine chemistry, pyrophorics, and polymer chemistry.

At Hydron, Dr. Nair focuses on advancing sustainable technologies and engineering solutions for environmental decontamination.

Dr. Ngai Yin Yip is the Chief Technology Officer at Hydron, bringing extensive expertise in desalination technologies, particularly through solvent extraction methods. His pioneering research and ongoing innovation continue to drive advancements in sustainable water purification.

Dr. Ngai Yin Yip received his Ph.D., M.S., and M.Ph. in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from Yale University, and B.Eng. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Minor in Business Administration) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He joined Columbia University in 2015 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering.

Dr. Yip’s research interest is in advancing technologies and innovations to address challenges at the nexus of water, energy, and the environment. Currently, the research in his group is focused on i) desalination of ultrahigh salinity brines, ii) zero-liquid discharge technologies, iii) advancing more sustainable decentralized wastewater management approaches, iv) efficient conversion of low-grade heat to useful work, and v) development of better membranes for environmental applications. Description of active projects can be found here.

His dissertation work on novel membrane technologies for the sustainable production of energy and water earned the CH2M Hill/AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award and the Henry Prentiss Becton Graduate Prize in 2015. He has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications and has won the ES&T Best Papers (second runner-up in 2013).

Sarah Cone is a Co-Founder & Executive Chair of Hydron.

She is also the founder and Managing Partner of Social Impact Capital, a venture capital firm that produces top decile returns by investing in the earliest stages in companies that are solving the world’s most difficult problems. Hydron was incubated at Social Impact Capital, due to the pressing need for widespread, low-cost desalination solutions and emerged from a comprehensive review of all emerging desalination technologies.

Earlier in her career, Sarah worked for the consulting firm CTI, helping to restructure the R&D departments of Japanese corporations. Sarah has also been an Associate at Illuminate Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund investing in B2B SaaS. She got her start in venture capital working for the “emerging technologies” venture capital group at Omidyar Network. Sarah has also worked in the legal department of Google, at the technology law firm Fenwick & West, Amazon.com, and at the technology policy non-profit Public Knowledge.

Sarah has a BA in interdisciplinary studies from the Evergreen State College and a JD from UC Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, Sarah won the Advocacy Award for persuasive writing, the Jurisprudence Award for academic excellence, and her thesis “Reforming Federal Tax Policy to Support Social Entrepreneurs” received honors.