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Grant Boosts Research Commercialization Group

Ultra-thin film battery made by FlexEl (Univ. of Maryland)

Ultra-thin film battery made by FlexEl (Univ. of Maryland)

The Maryland Proof of Concept Alliance — a consortium of Maryland university research institutions and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory — has received a $5.1 million federal grant to support its work moving research findings from the lab to the marketplace. The Alliance helps researchers through the often tricky and (to the researchers) unfamiliar process of product development.

The Alliance provides small, targeted grants to fund demonstration projects and additional lab work to help prove the researcher’s concept to potential investors, a step that can make or break the goal of commercializing the results. Similar proof-of-concept centers work successfully at MIT and University of Southern California, both private universities. The Maryland version is the first of these efforts involving public institutions.

The Alliance supports researchers based at the University of Maryland, College Park and private firms working with the school’s Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The Army Research Lab, which provided the $5.1 million award, evaluates research proposals to identify the most promising ideas of interest to the Department of Defense. Final awards are decided jointly with the University System of Maryland — the parent body for Maryland’s public universities — and Mtech.

One of the companies that the Alliance helped get started is FlexEl LLC in Silver Spring, Maryland, a developer of thin-film rechargeable batteries for small electronic devices. The ultra-thin batteries (pictured left) use chemical, manufacturing, and power management processes developed by FlexEl. The company now takes part in the Mtech VentureAccelerator, a program for promising technology startup companies from the University of Maryland.

Another Alliance graduate is Zymetis, a biotechnology company in College Park, Maryland developing processes to convert biomass feedstocks into alternative fuels. The company is working on systems that put bacteria and enzymes to work to make ethanol and other fuels from bio-based agricultural and industrial wastes.

Text updated 3 December 2010, adding the source of the funding.

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