Three ORNL intellectual property projects with industry partners have advanced in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions, or OTT, Making Advanced Technology Commercialization Harmonized, or Lab MATCH, prize, which encourages entrepreneurs to find actionable pathways that bring lab-developed intellectual property, or IP, to market.
For their work in Phase 1, the Commitment Phase, the three teams will each receive $2,500 in cash prizes and will compete in Phase 2, the Plan Phase, among a pool of 19 applicants. In Phase 2, the teams will create comprehensive engagement plans.
“We’re excited to work with these three companies to move our researchers’ innovations to market,” said Jennifer Caldwell, director of technology transfer at ORNL. “Engaging with creative OTT programs like Lab MATCH helps ORNL reach more American companies who are enabling a clean energy future.”
The three companies exploring ORNL IP are:
- Expanding Frontiers in Brownsville, Texas, is interested in carbon capture technologies developed in the Energy and Electrification Infrastructures Division, the Buildings and Transportation Sciences Division and the Chemicals Sciences Division.
- TerraLoop in Durham, North Carolina, is interested in heating, ventilation and cooling technologies developed in the Energy and Electrification Infrastructures Division, the Buildings and Transportation Sciences Division and the Chemicals Sciences Division.
- ThermoVerse of Detroit, Michigan, and a current Innovation Crossroads fellow, is pursuing the commercialization of its large area transactive cooling, heating and energy storage technology. Innovation Crossroads is a DOE Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program node based at ORNL.
Up to nine teams from the Plan Phase will receive $30,000 each and be eligible to compete in Phase 3, the Action Phase. In this final phase, competitors will work closely with researchers and technology transfer offices to demonstrate progress toward commercialization. Three winning teams will each be awarded a $100,000 grand prize.
The three-phase Lab MATCH prize, funded by the Technology Commercialization Fund, identified commercially promising technologies at ORNL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. Applicants then had the opportunity to review and select their project focus from a portfolio of national lab-developed IP.
The prize is part of the DOE’s American-Made program, which fast-tracks clean energy innovation through prizes, training, mentoring and cross-sector collaboration.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.
