University of Colorado Technology Marketing Summaries

Here you’ll find marketing summaries for technologies available for licensing from the University of Colorado (CU). The summaries provide descriptions of the technologies including their benefits, applications and industries, and development stage.

28 Technology Marketing Summaries
Category	Title and Abstract	Partners	Date
Advanced Materials Solar Photovoltaic	Economical Pyrite-Based Solar Cells The first generation of solar cells, used in 90% of today's cells, have a focus of high efficiency. These cells use a single p-n junction to extract energy from photons, and are manufactured from silicon semiconductors. This allows for about 30% efficiency, but resulted in a price too high to compete with fossil fuels (payback time of about 5-7 years). The second generation of solar cells focuses on low production costs using thin film cells, which resulted in much lower efficiency rates.... read more	University of Colorado	11/09/2012
Biomass and Biofuels	Genes and Mechanisms for Improving Cellulosic Ethanol Production in E. Coli Cellulosic biomass accounts for roughly 75% of all plant material, and can be used to produce biofuels. Sources of cellulosic biomass include agricultural plant waste, organic waste from industrial processes, and crops grown specifically for fuel production. Biological conversion makes use of enzymes and microorganisms to convert pretreated cellulosic biomass into biofuels. In particular, Escherichia coli is a well-studied micro-organism commonly used in large-scale fermentations. In addition... read more	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Advanced Materials Energy Storage	Lithium Salt-doped, Gelled Polymer Electrolyte with a Nanoporous, Bicontinuous Cubic Architecture and High Room-temparature Ion Conductivity Li ion batteries have high energy density, high power delivery, and the ability to be recharged over a large number of cycles. One component that needs to be improved to make them suitable for high performance applications is the electrolyte material . High Li ion mobility/conductivity in electrolyte material is required for larger energy applications, and efficient discharge and recharge with a minimum of power loss to resistive heating. However, these electrolytes can leak from the battery,... read more	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Advanced Materials Energy Storage	Nanostructured, Rechargeable Solid-State Composite Batteries Research on all-solid-state rechargeable lithium batteries has increased considerably in recent years due to raised concerns relating to safety hazards such as solvent leakage and flammability of liquid electrolytes used for commercial lithium-ion batteries. As solid state electrolytes by nature do not carry the safety burdens of liquid electrolytes, an extensive worldwide effort is under way to produce a viable substitute solid electrolyte to replace conventional liquid electrolytes.... read more	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Advanced Materials Industrial Technologies	Ceramic-zeolite Composite Membranes and Use for Separation of Vapor-gas Mixtures Having both high selectivity and high permeability, the zeolite membranes have great potential for highly selective separation of vapor/gas and gas/gas mixtures and for catalytic membrane reactor applications. However, it is very difficult to prepare the membranes with pore diameter smaller than 1 nm, to meet the needs for highly selective separation of gases. A research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder led by Richard Noble had devloped a method of creating membranes with a uniform... read more	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Advanced Materials Biomass and Biofuels Vehicles and Fuels	New process to convert lipids and cellulosic biomass to renewable diesel A research team at the University of Colorado Denver led by Arunprakash Karunanithi has developed a decarboxylation process that will provide pathways to convert two different renewable feedstocks (lipids and waste biomass) directly to renewable diesel without the use of hydrogen.	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Advanced Materials Solar Photovoltaic	Nanohybrid Solar Cells Consisting of Self-Assembled Semiconducting Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube and Covalent Organic Polyhedrom (COP)-Fullerene Core-Shell A research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder led by Wei Zhang has developed a novel method to engineer a new class of self-assembling materials for photovoltaic applications.	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Biomass and Biofuels Industrial Technologies	Microbial Capacitive Desalination Cell A research team led by Dr. Jason Ren of the University of Colorado has developed novel microbial capacitive desalination cell (MCDC) technology for sustainable desalination, renewable energy production, and wastewater treatment solution.	University of Colorado	06/01/2012
Advanced Materials Hydrogen and Fuel Cell	Nucleation of Ultrathin, Continuous, Conformal Metal Films Using Atomic Layer Deposition and Applications as Fuel Cell Catalysts A research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder led by Steven George has developed a method to prepare a conformal thin film of platinum or one of its alloys onto a substrate, and more particularly to reduce the cost associated with depositing platinum as a catalyst in a fuel cell.	University of Colorado	05/23/2012
Electricity Transmission Industrial Technologies	Lightweight Superconducting Cables for use with High-Field Magnets and Military Applications The development of YBCO coated conductors has resulted in high critical current densities, but have been limited by the upper critical field of the superconductor. Achieving higher fields would require the use of high-temperature super conductors, but would require a novel form of cabling to achieve. A research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder led by Daniel van der Laan has developed a novel method of stranding YBCO coated conductors to make cables for use in low ac-loss and... read more	University of Colorado	05/23/2012
Advanced Materials Energy Storage	Solid-state Inorganic Lithium-Ion Conductors A research team at the University of Colorado Boulder led by Se-Hee Lee has developed an advanced single step, high energy ball milling system for preparation of electrodes for use in a solid state lithium-ion battery.	University of Colorado	05/23/2012
Advanced Materials Biomass and Biofuels	Lipid Extraction from Wet-Algae for Biofuel Production There is a growing interest in algal biofuels; however, current methods of a thermal separation process for solvent mixtures involve concomitant issues and increased energy consumption. A research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder led by John Pellegrino has developed a two-step membrane process which allows a solvent mixture to be used without the problems of concomitants and high energy expenditure that are usually inherent in a thermal separation process.	University of Colorado	05/23/2012
Advanced Materials Biomass and Biofuels	Novel Method of Ethanol/Water Separation with Nanoporous Polymer Membranes Bioethanol is an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel that has emerged as a sustainable fuel source. Fermentation is an attractive process for producing bioethanol, but requires costly product separation due to the low concentration of the fermentative products. Nanoporous polymer membranes have recently been explored not only in separating water from dissolved solutes in fermentation systems such as this, but also in liquid water purification and desalination. However, attempts at... read more	University of Colorado	03/29/2012
Solar Photovoltaic	Third-Generation Solar Cells Using Optical Rectenna Solar panels are designed as a photovoltaic module. The energy producing aspect of the photovoltaic module has two primary steps. The first is a semiconducting material such as silicon that can absorb the photons from sunlight, knocking electrons from atoms to produce a flow of electricity. The next step is conversion of the electricity into direct current through an array of solar cells. The first generation of solar cells, used in 90% of today’s cells, have a focus of high efficiency.... read more	University of Colorado	03/28/2012
Solar Photovoltaic	Smart Solar Rooftops Solar panels, or photovoltaic panels, use photovoltaic cells to create energy. These cells create direct current through absorption of sunlight's photons by silicon, allowing electrons to be stripped from atoms. The direct current is then inverted and either stored in a battery or immediately used for energy. The current silicon-based solar cells have a limiting efficiency of about 30% for a variety of reasons. Current cells can only absorb a portion of the light the sun produces, and... read more	University of Colorado	03/28/2012
Electricity Transmission Industrial Technologies Solar Photovoltaic Vehicles and Fuels	Grid-Interactive Electric Vehicle DC-Link Photovoltaic Charging System The transportation sector currently accounts for 70% of petroleum consumption and more than a third of green house gas emissions in the US. Studies have shown that major reductions in GHG emissions can be accomplished by transitioning to battery powered automobiles. However, the large battery systems required could be problematic due to high cost in combination with limited specific energy, safety issues, as well as limited cycle and calendar life. A DC-to-DC converter takes a direct... read more	University of Colorado	03/28/2012
Energy Storage	Advanced Solid State Li-Ion Battery Research on all-solid-state rechargeable lithium batteries has increased considerably in recent years due to raised concerns relating to safety hazards such as solvent leakage and flammability of liquid electrolytes used for commercial lithium-ion batteries. As solid state electrolytes do not carry the safety burdens of liquid electrolytes and are more effective, an effort is under way to produce a viable substitute solid electrolyte to replace conventional liquid electrolytes. Yet another... read more	University of Colorado	03/28/2012
Advanced Materials Biomass and Biofuels Hydrogen and Fuel Cell	Highly Efficient, Scalable Microbial Fuel Cell With present day environmental and energy concerns rising, the development of environmentally friendly energy sources is quickly becoming a top priority. One group of alternative energy sources that show great potential to meet future energy demands are bioelectrochemical systems (BES) or microbial fuel cells (MFC), which can be used to both treat waste water and produce energy. Current wastewater treatment processes are energy-intensive due to the power demand for aeration, sludge... read more	University of Colorado	03/28/2012
Building Energy Efficiency Electricity Transmission	Fault Detection and Isolation in Low-Voltage DC Distribution System Small-scale low-voltage distribution systems, such as a microgrid, have many advantages to traditional AC distribution systems. Although AC-bus based systems can readily use the existing AC power grid technologies, grid issues including synchronization, reactive power control, and bus stability are inherited as well. DC-bus based systems can be a feasible solution because they are small, localized systems that cause the transmission loss to be negligible. Moreover, it does not need to consider... read more	University of Colorado	03/20/2012
Advanced Materials	Controllable Nanometer-sized Valve Using a Zeolite Membrane Zeolites are crystalline structures made up of "T-atoms" which are tetrahedrally bonded to each other with oxygen bridges. Because of the regularity of the crystalline structure and the pores with angstrom size dimensions, these crystals, when grown together to form a membrane, can operate as separations devices for gas and liquid mixtures. These membranes have advantages over other types of membranes in that they are highly stable under thermal cycling, high temperatures, and harsh... read more	University of Colorado	03/20/2012
Advanced Materials Industrial Technologies	“Green” Replacement for Industrial Applications of Polar Organic Solvents Polar organic solvents are commonly used in cleaning, reactions, and processing in many industries. Today these solvents are known to be volatile, hazardous to health, toxic in the environment, and flammable, with no comparable alternatives. These toxic attributes make polar organic solvents very hard to work with, and the harmful effects of these volatile compounds require that expensive procedures, equipment and environmental, health, and safety controls be in place at all times to... read more	University of Colorado	03/20/2012
Advanced Materials Biomass and Biofuels	Heterogeneous Catalyst for Improved Selectivity of Biomass-Derived Molecules In today’s industrial processes, heterogeneous catalysts are widely used because of their stability and ease of separation from the reactant phase compared to their homogenous counterparts. A continual challenge in the advancement of heterogeneous catalysts is in the improvement of selectivity, which can significantly reduce costs of product purification and waste. Historically, homogenous catalysts offer high selectivity utilizing specific interactions, while heterogeneous catalysts... read more	University of Colorado	03/20/2012
Solar Photovoltaic	Improved Organic Photovoltaics Traditionally, photosensitive optoelectronic devices such as solar cells have been constructed of a number of inorganic semiconductors. Purity and crystalline grain size are a large determinant of efficiency in these cells. The smaller the grains and the more impure the material, the lower the efficiency. The drawback to using these typical inorganic photovoltaic (PV) materials is that processing is often quite expensive and energy intensive. Pure monocrystalline silicon, currently a common... read more	University of Colorado	12/16/2011
Building Energy Efficiency Solar Photovoltaic Solar Thermal	Low-cost, Modular, Building-integrated Photovoltaic-Thermal Collector Buildings consume approximately 40% of the energy, and nearly 70% of the electricity used in the United States. Building surfaces are well suited to renewable energy production. The surface area of a typical residence is large enough to produce the electricity required to operate the building. However, in order to achieve net-zero energy use, solar thermal collectors are often required to produce hot water for domestic and space heating needs or pre-heated ventilation air. Current problems with... read more	University of Colorado	12/16/2011
Solar Photovoltaic	Improved Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) for Higher Energy Conversion Efficiency A University of Colorado research group led by Rich Noble has developed a novel approach to dye-sensitized solar cells that increases solar-to-electrical energy conversion.	University of Colorado	04/01/2011
Advanced Materials Biomass and Biofuels	Lyotropic Liquid Crystal (LLC) Nanofiltration Membranes University of Colorado research groups led by Douglas Gin and Richard Noble have developed a novel type of filtration membrane based on the polymerization of lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) that contains ordered, densely packed, size-tunable pores of uniform size. These new LLC membranes have pore sizes on the order of 0.5-2 nm. The resulting size-selectivity of these membranes enables high, predictable rejection of dissolved ions (salts, in particular) from water as well as a number of... read more	University of Colorado	12/06/2010
Advanced Materials Energy Storage Hydrogen and Fuel Cell	Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) Preparation of Noble Metal Catalysts Organic pollutants in wastewater streams and volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere have been increasing over the recent decades. Currently, semiconductor photocatalysts such as Titanium Oxide (TiO2), are used to minimize the effects of environmental pollution by detoxifying harmful organic materials. These photocatalysts are activated by UV light and break bonds in the contaminant to make it non-toxic. TiO2 provides many benefits in use, as it is low cost, non-toxic, and has the ability... read more	University of Colorado	12/06/2010
Advanced Materials Building Energy Efficiency Industrial Technologies Vehicles and Fuels	Efficient, Low-cost Microchannel Heat Exchanger A research team at the University of Colorado has developed a novel heat exchanger design and accompanying manufacturing technique for creating low-cost microchannel heat exchangers from plastics, metals, or ceramics. The prototype used laser welding (upper red lines at right). Expansion makes “chessboard” counter flow pattern (lower right). The figure below shows mass production, where sheets are added one at a time and welded with a mask and filament (left) or laser (right). The... read more	University of Colorado	12/06/2010