PITTSBURGH, Pa.—The Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center recently won a $500,000 grant from Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority to support its fledgling program for the development of new products and companies using advanced materials technologies within the energy industry. The Center is providing federal matching funds with the state money, using its existing Air Force Research Laboratories grant, along with matches from regional industry, to create a $1.1 million program that will continue through December 31, 2010.
The Center will be using the funds to achieve two objectives: to create innovative new ideas for using advanced materials to solve the nation’s energy challenges; and to create and support new researcher-industry partnerships to commercialize these new technologies. At least one workshop, titled “Advanced Materials Research for Energy Applications,” was held last fall at Penn State to support the objective of creating innovative new ideas. It’s hoped that this cooperative brainstorming will ultimately lead to new energy solutions in areas that include solar, wind, storage, efficiency enhancements, and technologies related to traditional energy generation, such as coal and natural gas.
For the second objective of the program, the Center will provide grants to new or existing industry-university partnerships to accelerate the commercialization of the technologies to market. These grants will come in two forms. The first will be pre-commercialization grants to university or company researchers with a commercialization sponsor; these projects will support the final development of the technology. The second grant will be for small and large companies to commercialize their technologies for specific product applications.
To provide strategic direction on how advanced materials research can lead to new energy solutions, the Center recently completed a study, entitled “Pennsylvania Opportunities in Advanced Materials for Energy.” The report found that Pennsylvania is one of the leading states in the country for innovation in advanced materials for energy. In addition to already having significant industrial presence and employment in the “advanced materials for energy” sector, the state was found to have significant alignment between its industry base and research assets in almost all segments of the energy market.
“The data demonstrate that Pennsylvania is very well positioned to leverage its assets in advanced materials to support a thriving energy sector, for both non-renewable and renewable sources, along with new green solutions,” said the Center’s executive director, Dr. Alan Brown, in a statement commenting on the report’s findings. “We are confident that our energy initiative, supported by the state, will facilitate innovation through new industry-researcher partnerships and build on our energy legacy.”
The Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center (www.pananocenter.org) states that its mission is to promote and support the commercialization of nanomaterials research for new and enhanced products that are critical to the U.S. economy and manufacturing base. The Center provides a new model for a public-private partnership among government, universities, entrepreneurs, and companies aimed at accelerating the transition from nanomaterials innovation to new products.
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