Energy | Technology Licensing

Available Technologies by Category

Parametric Resonance Approach for Efficient, Versatile Acoustic Power Transfer for Implantable/Wearable Devices, Sensing, and Communications New class of transducers utilizes parametric resonance to convert acoustic energy from an ultrasonic source to a sustained electrical signal. Technology powers implantable biomedical devices, small wearable sensors, and other wireless charging applications. Simple yet robust generation of stable electromechanical frequency combs is also possible in both air and liquid environments using a capacitive micro-resonator array.	7635, 9075
Customizable Smart Charging Solution for Electric Vehicles in Residential Areas This customizable smart charger uses algorithms and a hardware prototype to control electric vehicle charging and optimize benefits to consumers and power grid operators. Consumers can charge according to their preference (e.g., minimize cost, maximize carbon-free energy usage, minimize charging time, or minimize battery degradation). The smart charger selects charging profiles that delay charging to avoid excessive loads on the power grid.	8980
Quantitative, Performance-Driven Framework for Optimal Desalination Architectures and Energy Subsystems Incorporate and simultaneously compare attributes of multiple types of both desalting systems and energy subsystems for optimal system architectures Assess parameters that impact overall cost to discover complete architectures that would not have been discoverable using traditional methods. Focus on renewable energy subsystems such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and others to create complete desalination architectures that are cleaner and more water efficient than their conventional counterparts.	9055
Self-Driven, Reusable, Scalable Technique for Harvesting Microalgae with Porous Superabsorbent Polymer Fast: The optimized pore structure of the PSAP beads allows fast and selective absorption of water, greatly reducing standard processing time. Cost effective: Microalgae harvesting with PSAP beads cuts costs, as it does not require any complex instrument and little training is needed to operate the harvesting procedures. Scalable: PSAP beads can be produced in large quantities at a significantly lower cost than conventional harvesting tools.	8849
Buoyant Platform Assembly Improves PCM Thermal Management Enhances solidification: Incorporating highly localized agitation via a stirring whip rod, this technology seeds solidification to improve this often-arduous phase of PCM thermal cycling. Prevents scale build-up: This technology reduces the instance of sheets of solid PCM forming on the heat sink. The high-frequency, extensible whip rod orbits around the passageway to facilitate nucleation (creating improved solidification), while preventing scale build-up on the interior passageway surfaces. Customizable: The structural design allows the platform to be tailored to the effective density of the PCM material, enabling it to stay between the liquid and solid phases.	8835
Lightweight, Versatile Cryogenic Conductors Lithium exhibits lower atomic mass, higher power density, and lower losses under cryogenic conditions Conductors such as lithium become even more power-dense at lower temperatures, exhibiting improved electrical performance Cladding with copper enables lithium to be drawn using standard wire-drawing techniques and tools	8729
Innovative Polymeric Bipolar Membrane Design Provides Wide Industrial Applications This innovative bipolar membrane design dissociates water at a low voltage and provides a tunable membrane with a green method for large-scale manufacturing. Polyvinyl alcohol-based bipolar membrane designs reduce energy costs, maintenance, and toxic chemical usage. This polymeric bipolar membrane is widely applicable across industries, including fuel cells, hydrogen production, carbon capture/conversion, wastewater treatment, and battery-based technologies.	9044
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
Scalable Manufacturing Approach of Graded Polymer Thin Film Has Potential for Widespread Use Combines slot die coating with a custom roll-to-roll imaging system to allow for efficient, rapid, and scalable fabrication of high-quality gradient thin films. An improved manufacturing process over existing techniques because it uses broad material combinations and yields higher quality patterned thin films. Incorporates multiple materials to increase the application of patterned thin films across industries, including microelectronics, energy technologies, and environmental systems.	8994
Anodically Coloring Molecular Electrochromics (EC) Improve Contrast, Color, and Transitions True black-to-clear transitions with high contrast and color tuning are now possible with anodically coloring electrochromics. Broad absorption supports color mixing and color tunability in the charged state, and color tuning is enabled by manipulating the oscillator strengths of radical cation transitions. Energy required for practical electrochromic applications is effectively decreased by much lower oxidative potentials, as compared to their corresponding polyamides.	7745
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
Reprocessing, Recycling, and Repairing Covalent Adaptable Network Polymers Environmentally friendly: Recycles fibers and polymers without the use of supercritical chemicals (e.g., acids) Effective: Allows for pressure-free surface repair and welding Efficient: Reclaims fibers and polymer with the same mechanical properties as fresh material for use in new products	7348
Thin Current Spreading Layers Improve Breakdown Performance Increases current uniformity: Improves cumulative current flow distribution from ~40% to ~100% of the p-type contact Improves breakdown performance: Avoids premature breakdown at the mesa edges making quasi-vertical devices comparable in performance to more expensive vertical devices. Improves Immunity to Etch Variation: Because current flow is no longer crowded along the mesa edges, process related variations in the mesa etching are less important to the diode performance.	8789
More Efficient Method for Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide Efficient CO₂ recycling: Allows for robust recycling of unreacted CO₂ from an electrochemical cell Increased overall CO₂ conversion: Features efficient use of recycling, enabling 100% theoretical atom conversion for this reaction with an intrinsically low CO₂ conversion Customized deployment: Integrates with a wide variety of product streams	8875
Cascaded Nickel Hard Mask Substantially deeper etches: Because a very thick metal mask can be created, a wide range of µm features can be etched in a variety of III-Nitride semiconductors, allowing for extremely high voltage devices that require thicker layer structures Robust: This method has demonstrated highly consistent and effective protection against the kind of damage that is typical with standard fabrication methods Scalable: The nickel hard mask with cascaded e-beam evaporation and sputtering metal deposition method can readily be applied to the large-scale production of electronic devices	8790
Self-Powered Highly Stretchable Sensing Interface for Gesture Recognition Self-contained: Includes a signal processing pipeline, providing gesture recognition for an extensive range of input modalities without the need for external power or sensing equipment Assistive: Enables eyes-free, unobtrusive, and ergonomic interaction with computing devices embedded in wearables Versatile: Demonstrates far-reaching potential for applications beyond gesture recognition including in actuation and data acquisition	7987
p-type Be-Doped AlN Films and Layered Films Enabling: Leverages MME method to provide the first access to p-type AlN:Be films, a superior ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor material good for high-power, high-temperature diodes and transistors Ease of fabrication: Avoids costly and complicated methods unfavorable for beryllium doping Improved breakdown performance: Achieves high reverse breakdown voltage—a significant advantage over WBG materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and GaN	8810, 8666, 8786
Flexible Power Generation with Negative Carbon Emissions Energy security: This system enables the continued use of low-cost domestic fuel (i.e., natural gas) for electricity generation and increases the reliability of U.S. electricity production. Environmental protection: Flexible carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems can achieve high CO2 capture rates from flue gas. For example, with this system a power generator could shift the times it exports electricity to the grid, allowing the power generator and CCS plant to operate under steady-state conditions and with reduced emissions. Reduced costs: The cost of a net-zero carbon electricity system is lowered by providing dispatchable power to a high-VRE grid.	8834
Two-Phase Thermal Management System for Integrated Motor Cooling High-performance: Utilizes three-dimensional silicon carbide packaging and novel drive topologies with reduced switching losses, leading to increased power density and lower motor system size and weight Embedded: Integrates with the motor and drive electronics rather than requiring an externally attached heat exchanger system Efficient: Dramatically increases volumetric heat removal rates in electric motor systems by employing a wick structure designed to assist liquid delivery to enable evaporative cooling	8280
A Method for Creating a Protective Cap Layer for Semiconductor Wafers Protective: Provides a thin protective layer or “cap” after the first layer is deposited, protecting the underlying structure from atmospheric contaminants Robust: Enables realization of the advantages of hybrid growth processes by eliminating performance-degrading contaminants and resulting defects Advanced: Offers superior protection against contamination compared with simple chemical cleaning methods utilized in other systems, especially against impurity species such as oxides	8435
Micro Ammonia Production System (MAPS)—Systems and methods for making nitrogen-based compounds Higher yield and efficiency: Uses hollow hybrid nanoparticles instead of solid nanoparticles for a three-fold enhancement in electrocatalytic activity due to the increased surface area and higher number of successful reactant collisions Sustainable production: Leverages renewable electricity sources and offers clean and sustainable ammonia electrosynthesis, unlike the current industrial method for ammonia production that is energy intensive and heavily relies on fossil fuels Simplified process: Enables production of ammonia via gas-phase system with few or no additional steps for separation and purification	8056
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
Fully Passive, Long-Range Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) via 5G Large coverage: Provides a unique combination of large angular coverage and turn-on sensitivity in both planar and bent configurations Long range: Demonstrates the potential for RFIDs with practical reading ranges over 1.8 km Scalable: Scales in size to a precise degree, enabling selection of the optimal tradeoff between size and harvested power/reading range	8141, 8439
Purely Passive Radio-Frequency Identification Powerful: Projected to support energy harvesting sensors at distances over 100 meters from readers and/or radio transmission sources Efficient: Enables conversion of RF energy at higher efficiency and at higher output voltages than current electronic energy harvesting methods Widely applicable: May advance RFID applications in a wide range of fields including computing, sensing, and communication	7194
Sustainable Combination Technology Delivers a Long-Lasting Self-Powered Battery Continuous: Regulates power harvested in the presence of constant mechanical motion to store excess energy while pushing a constant voltage to the external load Eco-friendly: Reduces the need for consumers and technology developers to utilize supply-limited traditional batteries that are thrown away after a short use and could leak harmful chemicals into the environment Sustainable: Eliminates the need to mine an additional power supply by harvesting energy from underutilized electrostatic induction found in naturally occurring mechanical motion	6418
Zeolite Membrane Sieves Fabricated on Low-Cost Alumina Hollow Fiber Substrates High performance: Enables lower-cost, scalable, membrane-based molecular separation Convenient: Can form a standalone complete separation or reduce bottlenecks in conventional separation processes	8080, 8167
Drive Belt with Surface Texture to Minimize Vibrations Effective: Demonstrated significant reduction in vibration compared with flat, untextured belt surfaces in preliminary testing Simple: Provides a straightforward and easy-to-implement solution to a widespread problem Economical: Offers a far less expensive means of maintaining the operation of machinery compared with replacing worn belts or employing complex tension systems	8307
Heat Dissipation for Microelectronic Systems via Capillary Trap Effective: Dissipates large heat fluxes via 3D heat spreading and evaporative cooling that could approach kW/cm2 and beyond while keeping the surface temperature under 90oC Preventive: Mitigates coolant dry-out at the critical heat flux levels that result in a rapid and large temperature rise and thus cause device burn-out Efficient: Exploits high cooling capabilities associated with phase-change heat transfer through evaporation	6272
Next-Generation Flow Battery for Large-Scale Energy Storage at One-Tenth the Cost Higher power density: This design has achieved ultra-high power densities of 630 W/Ldevice (charge) and 170 W/Ldevice (discharge), compared to existing flow battery designs that achieve only 500 W/Ldevice (charge) and 90 W/Ldevice (discharge). Ultra-high current density: The design has achieved current densities of >300 mA/cm3 per device. Dramatically lower cost: The elimination of parts reduces fabrication costs by 90%. Cost is ~$330 rather than ~$4,400.	8284, 8571
High-Performance Broadband Photodetector Enhanced sensitivity: Functions over a wide range of wavelengths—from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared High performance: Operates at high-speed response conditions in wide spectral bandwidth for various applications High stability and repeatability: Offers significant photo-sensing ability with no deviation or degradation observed after one year	7963
Energy Storage for Automotive/Portable Applications Increased storage density — backbone offers high surface area for hydrogen storage Fast and easy — polymer readily folds and unfolds for hydrogen storage and fast release in response to actuation Suitable for packaging — uses compliant polymers as a matrix to assume any form factor	3626
Novel Electrochemical Method for Extracting Lithium from Seawater Fast: This method shortens the time for lithium extraction from seawater from years to days. Energy-efficient: The STLFP has outstanding electrochemical storage properties and working potential, which can achieve high energy efficiency and obtain great lithium recovery. Eco-friendly: The recovery process requires no additional heating or chemicals.	8355
Poroelastic Solutions for Spherical-Tip Indentation Robust: Provides a rigorous theoretical base that takes into account poroelastic coupling and the effects of Poisson’s ratio as well as the compressibility of both fluid and solid phases on force relaxation Intelligent: Can be used with sensors and processors to automatically direct an indentation tool and record pertinent data Flexible: Accommodates both permeable and impermeable indentation tools	7870
SlothBot: Sustainable Solution for Studying Climate Change Wide-ranging: Can switch between two different wire branches and can therefore traverse a whole mesh of wires Sustainable: Utilizes solar energy and runs with a low power consumption, making the robot highly energy efficient Low risk: Employs a fail-safe design that protects the robot from damage in the event of a mechanical failure	8194
Highly Efficient, Durable Cathodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) More stable: The technique used enhances cathode durability while maintaining the high-kinetic electrode structure Stackable: The cathode design is suitable for implementation in a fuel cell stack Fast: The combination of nanoparticles and conformal coatings provides increased reaction sites and rapid transport paths	7256
Hybrid Triboelectric Nanogenerator Harvests Mechanical and Electrical Energy Sustainable: Harvests energy from the environment to minimize the use of non-renewable materials for power Highly efficient: Exhibits an unprecedented conversion efficiency of 50% to 85%, an area power density of 313 watts per square meter, and a volume power density of 340 kilowatts per cubic meter Powerful: Integrates with several other TENGs for output power of 1 megawatt	6606
Three-Dimensionally Textured Photovoltaic (PV) Cells Powerful: Improves probability of absorption via a novel light-trapping geometry Practical: Eliminates the need for heavy, complex, costly, and failure-prone mechanical systems required by traditional planar PV cells to track the sun Reliable: Improves photon absorption probability even at off-normal azimuth angles, leading to more predictable performance across all seasons for terrestrial applications	2922
Fabricating High-Power Solar Cells with a Novel Boron Emitter Efficient: Demonstrates a competitive level of efficiency road map of over 24.2% Cost-effective: Offers a simplified approach for fabricating TOPCon solar cells while still maintaining their efficiency Sustainable: Improves upon current renewable energy solutions that provide alternatives to fossil fuel–based energy consumption	7991
Optical Wireless Communications System Self-Powered by Triboelectric Nanogenerator High capacity: Utilizes optical electromagnetic frequencies for transmission to bypass the crowding from other wireless service providers Sustainable: Sources renewable energy via the TENG Practical: Contains parameters and techniques that can be optimized for different circumstances	7863

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