Available Technologies by Category
Nanocomposite Film for Volatile Organic Compound Sensing
  • The invention is a new type of chemoresistor capable of sensing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). 
  • The chemoresistor is comprised of a conductive nanoparticle surrounded by a polymer matrix which allows for the chemoresistor’s
    resistance, sensitivity, and target VOC to be adjusted.
  • The nanocomposite can be placed on electrodes through drop casting, dip coating, and painting, which provides a cheap, simple and sensitive sensor ideal for fieldwork.
8695
Leverage the Advantages of Aluminum Nitride for Superior Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductors for High-Power, High-Temperature Diodes and Transistors
  • Metal modulated epitaxy method enables the production of p-type beryllium-doped aluminum nitride films as key components in ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors for the first time. 
  • Achieves high reverse breakdown voltage—a significant advantage over wide bandgap materials such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride.
  • Improves current conduction over best previous results in p-type aluminum nitride (AIN) by 30,000,000 times and n-type AlN by 6,000 times.
8666
Tunable Membrane-Based Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery
  • Customizable membrane structure and surface properties provide selective removal of contaminants of emerging concerns (CEC) and recovery of valuable components.
  • An enlarged membrane surface area, combined with a gutter effect from the interlayer, results in nearly double the water permeability of current filtration membranes.
  • Achieves high-performance recovery of essential nutrients/fertilizers that are free of CECs.
8633
Microgeodes Enable Tunable Optical Response for Advanced Coatings/Paint
  • Microgeodes have a programmable structure of nanowires that allows their optical response to be engineered precisely over multiple spectral bands, from UV through mid-IR. 
  • Microgeodes combine the tunability and versatility of nanowires with the processability of microspheres to provide a photonic materials platform for a wide range of applications. 
  • Microgeode paints could reduce building surface temperatures by as much as 25°C, offering the potential for significant consumer savings while retaining aesthetically pleasing colors.
8866
Tunable MEMs Gas Sensor Improves Selectivity and Sensitivity
  • Versatile: Customizes MEMS chemical sensors, compatible with a variety of sensing materials, allowing for the detection of numerous gas-phase analytes
  • Easy to manufacture: Uses batch-fabricated sensors compatible with COTS electronics
  • Highly sensitive: Offers sub parts-per-million detection limits for volatile organic compounds
  • Enhanced selectivity: Combines gravimetric and impedimetric responses to demonstrate enhanced discrimination between multiple VOCs
  • Powerful: Enables the simultaneous observation of both mass loading and dielectric changes in polymeric sensing films upon sorption of an analyte
  • Innovative: Uses the transient response characteristics of a sensor response to a gated exposure event, rather than steady-state sensor data
8269, 8987
Superluminescent Light Projection (SLP) System Decreases Nanoscale Printing Costs by 10–50 Times
  • This superluminescent light projection (SLP) system decreases overall nanoscale printing costs by 10–50 times. 
  • A parallel writing mechanism supports higher throughput speeds: up to 100 times higher than existing metal printing methods and four times higher than existing polymer printing methods. 
  • SLP creates sharp-edged images with minimal speckling patterns, resulting in high-resolution images and structures on both polymer and metal-based films. 
9066
Quickly and Easily Generate Designer Photopatterned Hydrogel Matrices for Complex Microfluidic Tissue/Organ-on-a-Chip Devices
  • Offers better spatiotemporal control and customization of hydrogel crosslinking and cell patterning
  • Provides a viable alternative to PEG-MAL for culturing primary B cells ex vivo and studying their response to antigens
  • Reduces timing and compatibility issues and offers designer flexibility compared to natural matrices
8986
Sustained Lymphatic Drug Delivery System Potentially Improves Efficacy and Safety of Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapies
  • This sustained lymphatic drug delivery system guides therapeutics and imaging agents to the injection site, lymphatic vessels, and lymph nodes. 
  • Sustained lymphatic delivery enables lower dosing and fewer administrations to potentially improve therapeutic response while reducing adverse effects and costs.
  • The simplicity of a vaccine-like, sustained drug release injection allows use at less expensive community health centers.
8637
Electric Field Treatment Creates Safe, Effective Antimicrobial Surfaces
  • Creates safe, effective antimicrobial surfaces via bacteria inactivation without the use of chemicals
  • Targets cell membranes or capsid, is less likely to induce antimicrobial resistance, and should be effective for antibiotic-resistant bacteria
  • Requires very short electrical pulses to achieve effective bacteria inactivation, potentially leading to better antifouling performance
9130
Chemically Modified Reduced Graphene Oxides (rGOs) Improve Strength and Qualities of Polymer Composites
  • Chemically modifying rGO creates improved dispersibility and miscibility that can be used in polymer processes as a composite reinforcement or coating material.
  • Easily scalable solution chemistry and purification/filtration makes the process economically feasible, resulting in a commercially viable material for many applications.
  • Melt lamination results in a robust conductive coating that is more durable than comparable polymer-based coatings and enables many electronically active device designs.
8297
Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Unique Input Design that Significantly Reduces Computational Costs of Complex Engineering Systems
  • Neural network’s novel input can utilize first-order schemes and local patches and allows for discontinuities to be reflected accurately and with greater resolution than existing products.
  • This adaptable ANN can be adopted by commercial and scientific research as a stand-alone solution or in conjunction with existing software. 
  • Lower costs for running complex and repetitive computations can be achieved by implementing this neural network with an input system that processes low-cost numerical solution patches arising from two or more converging solutions.
8963
Novel Nanocarriers Strengthen Therapeutic Delivery, Improves Efficacy
  • Greater therapeutic effectiveness is due to the synergistic work of multiple therapeutic agents (hydrophobic/hydrophilic charged) that can be delivered via this dual-loaded biomaterial.
  • The risk of immunotoxicity to a vaccine is reduced because an adjuvant, which can induce the body’s anti-inflammatory immune response, may be loaded and simultaneously delivered with the vaccine. 
  • The novel nanocarrier has broad market application since it can deliver vaccines, gene therapy, small molecule drugs, and even contrast agents.
8988
Microrobots for Neurosurgery Applications
  • Minimally invasive: Significantly reduces invasiveness of procedures in comparison to current macroscale, neurosurgical robots 
  • Precise control: Uses 3D position data of the microrobots on the brain surface in a closed-loop system to adjust the magnetic field parameters (i.e., magnitude, frequency, phase, and direct current [DC] offset of each coil) as well as the forces the robots exert to the biopsy tissue
  • Facilitates movement: Employs microfabricated shapes that dictate the microrobot's movements, limits their contact with the brain surface to reduce adhesion, and may also provide a means for the robot to propel itself in fluid
8749
Hybrid Molecular Catalysts: A New Blueprint for Catalyst Design, Preparation, and Testing
  • Attachment of molecular catalysts to solid supports can lead to new reactivity not seen under homogeneous conditions
  • At an optimal atomic layer deposition (ALD) layer thickness, the molecular catalyst remains highly active while still being resistant to surface detachment and subsequent deactivation
  • Catalyst separation and recovery achieved via a simple filtering and washing process rather than energy- and time-intensive distillation or re-crystallization processes
  • In addition to the simple filter-and-wash process mentioned above, encapsulation requires only about 10 reaction cycles, making this process technologically and economically viable for large-scale manufacturing
8537
Vapor Phase Infiltration Produces Solar Cells with Greater Thermal Stability
  • Stability: Decreasing spiro-OMeTAD crystallization improves thermal stability of hole transport layers within perovskite solar cells (PSCs) 
  • Longevity: Eliminating the main cause of PSCs’ operational degradation increases the overall product lifespan
  • Efficiency: Preventing the delamination of the layers transporting electronic charge has doubled the power conversion efficiency of modified PSCs
9034
Atomic Metal Catalysts
  • Innovative: Generates new isomers by changing the order in which atoms are added in a hetero-atomic cluster (can maximize available catalytic sites)
  • Efficient: Creates and optimizes active isomers of atomic metals such as Au and Pd, increasing the catalytic efficiency of these high-demand metals (requires minimal precious catalytic metal)
  • Scalable: Provides a scalable process resulting in theoretically predictable catalytic properties
6451, 5217
Chip-Scale Electrochemical Double-Layer (ECDL) Supercapacitors
  • Decreased size: Minimizes space that does not contribute to volumetric density and is drastically smaller than conventional ECDL capacitors, allowing capacitor-dependent devices to shrink considerably
  • High power: Achieves gravimetric energy densities of over 100 watt-hours per kilogram
  • Improved performance: The vertically aligned graphene-functionalized carbon nanotubes Offers high porosity and surface area for improved pseudocapacitance by vertically aligning graphene-functionalized nanotubes
6573
Superior Supercapacitors
  • High performance: Achieves average energy densities as high as 90 Wh/Kg
  • Scalable: Leverages a low-cost PAN fabrication process that dramatically increases surface area
  • Widely applicable: Demonstrates potential for advances in a variety of energy storage and capacitive water desalination applications
6201
Nanoparticle-Stabilized Carbon Molecular Sieve Membranes for Efficient, Large-Scale Gas Separation
  • Cost efficient: Eliminates the need for the time-consuming process of post-treating precursor fibers in a chemical modifying agent in order to prevent collapse
  • Scalable: Increases available surface area for gas separation to accommodate large-scale applications
  • Adaptable: Allows for selection of the nanoparticles’ concentration and type to meet a desired combination of gas permeance and selectivity
6723
Heat-Responsive Programmable T-Cells
  • Specific: The remote programmable nature of these T-cells allows them to be selectively activated only in the necessary locations.
  • Protective: This focused, genetically engineered immunotherapy is intended to protect patients from the additional harm of the off-target cell death and unnecessary systemic damage that is more common with oncological therapeutics.
  • Non-invasive: With NIR light’s ability to penetrate into multiple layers of biological tissue and be absorbed by AuNRs, this technology removes the need for a light source in the body to trigger the T-cells.
7422