Hartford Business Journal

2014 | Doing Business in Connecticut 25 SPONSORED REPORT industry partnerships. The university's Technology Exchange Portal (TEP) is the bridge builder, matching industry needs with UConn's rich array of faculty expertise and research capabilities in areas such as advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, biodevices and bioinformatics. UConn's Technology Incubation Program (TIP) provides critical lab and office space for new business ventures, along with an array of support services and resources. Startups in UConn's incubator labs pursue new frontiers in nanotechnology, stem-cell technology, bioscience, energy and many other disciplines. Once new business ideas begin to gel, UConn's Technology Partnerships and Licensing group (TPL) can identify and evaluate new technologies and help coordinate licensing and other agreements. Companies interested in collaborating with UConn can file applications through the university's Manufacturing Technical Assistance Program. The program is designed to establish partnerships between companies and a UConn faculty member or research team in order to help the company resolve issues associated with its current or planned manufacturing processes. The program includes access to UConn's state-of-the-art research facilities and equipment. "Partnering with a well-respected institution to create the electrical distribution technologies of tomorrow enables us to bring our customers more innovative products and manufacture them more effectively," said Bob Gilligan, CEO of GE's Industrial Solutions. "Ultimately, that translates to cost savings for customers." U Conn's Center for Clean Energy Engineering has developed a new manufacturing process for fuel cells that could make highly efficient, fuel cell-powered vehicles a viable commercial option in the next 10 years — or even sooner. Engineering professor Radenka Maric has responded to industry demand for lower manufacturing costs, increased durability and increased efficiency for fuel cells by developing a breakthrough manufacturing process that uses 10 times less catalyst material, reduces waste and significantly lowers production costs while maintaining maximum efficiency. The low- temperature process allows for important industrial controls and flexibility, and can be easily scaled up for mass production. "We are trying to reduce the processing steps, and that is going to reduce the cost of manufacturing," says Maric. "Many times, an industry starts working on something with the technologies they inherit. They may make the first generation of products, but they are always looking for that next generation that is better and cheaper. That is what we are focusing on — the next generation." Maric, who has published more than 150 scientific papers and holds several patents, is internationally recognized for her work with fuel cells, thin films and nanomaterials technology. Maric's discovery features small particles of catalyst material, such as platinum, which are shot out of a nozzle in the form of a gas flame, then instantly cooled into atom-sized solids and sprayed onto the fuel cell membrane in a carefully calibrated fine layer. Several Connecticut companies, including Sonalysts Inc. and Proton OnSite, are considering Maric's production techniques for industrial and commercial applications. Researchers at Sonalysts are helping the U.S. Office of Naval Research improve the safety and reliability of lithium-ion batteries through the use of nanotechnology and advanced thermal management. The company is also improving the efficiency of proton exchange membrane fuel cells by reducing the amount of the required catalyst. "Professor Maric's rapid spray deposition technology offers the potential of performance and reduction of manufacturing costs for both of these products," says Armand E. Halter, vice president of applied sciences at Sonalysts. At Proton OnSite, a global hydrogen energy and technology company, Katherine Ayers, the company's director of research, says she, too, is interested in Maric's technology. "We believe this technology has the ability to substantially reduce labor and scrap, especially due to the short shelf-life of most inks currently used for electrode processing," says Ayers. New fuel cell discoveries improve industry viability Construction is well underway at UConn's Farmington campus where the Bioscience CT initiative is expanding biomedical research, business incubator space, and adding 100 new scientists to the campus. Renowned Engineering professor Radenka Maric (Right) has developed a new manu- facturing process for fuel cells that could make highly efficient, fuel cell-powered vehicles a viable commercial option. PHOTO/Peter Morenus/UConn Photo.

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