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July 15, 2019 | Tom Ballard

One local company part of latest awards from DOE’s “Technology Commercialization Fund”

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced more than $24 million in funding for 77 projects supported by the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) and its “Technology Commercialization Fund” (TCF).

More than $4.5 million of the funding was targeted for 11 projects involving Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and its private sector partners. The latter were required to provide a 50 percent match to receive the federal funding.

With these matching dollars, DOE says these projects will advance the commercialization of promising energy technologies and strengthen partnerships between DOE’s national laboratories and private sector companies to deploy these technologies to the marketplace.

The only local company identified as a participant was Volunteer Aerospace, a start-up that we profiled in this teknovation.biz article from about 18 months ago.

The ORNL-connected projects funded, amounts, and private sector partners are as follows:

  • Autonomous Benthic Macroinvertebrate and Larval Fish Imaging and Identification System, $150,000, OceanSpace LLC, St. Petersburg, FL.
  • Enabling Cobalt-Free Battery Solution for Behind The Mater Storage, $750,000, SPARKS, Castro Valley, CA.
  • Enhanced Steam Condenser for Power Generation Applications, $150,000, IsoTherm Inc., Arlington, TX.
  • Environmental Insights Explorer for Buildings, $750,000, Google, Mountain View, CA.
  • Fabrication and Testing of Solid-solution Strengthened Corrosion Resistant Alloys for Service in Molten Fluoride Environments, $625,000, multiple private sector partners (Haynes International, Kokomo, IN.; Kairos Power, Oakland, CA.; and MetalTek International, Watertown, WI.)
  • High-temperature/high-pressure heat exchanger for natural gas-based modular power generation, $150,000, two partners (Atrex Energy, Walpole, MA., and IsoTherm Inc., Arlington, TX.)
  • Ionic liquids as novel lubricant additives for HVAC compressors for enhanced efficiency and durability, $150,000, Ingersoll Rand, Bloomington, MN.
  • Li-ion batteries with Safer Current Collectors, $750,000, Soteria Battery Innovation Group, Greenville, SC.
  • Multifunctional Intensified Reactor Device with Integrated Heat and Mass Transfer for Effective CO2 Capture, $150,000, multiple partners (AristoSys LLC, Canonsburg, PA.; Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.; and Volunteer Aerospace).
  • Scaling-up and Commercialization of Renewable Supertough Polylactic Acid formulation for Durable Large-Scale Additive Manufacturing Applications, $750,000, Natureworks, Minnetonka, MN.
  • Self-Sensing Fiber Reinforced Composites, $150,000, partner not listed.


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