DATE: October 24, 2007

CONTACT: Doug Hirt, (864) 656-0822
hirtd@clemson.edu

WRITER: Susan Polowczuk, (864) 656-2063
spolowc@clemson.edu

NSF award connects Engineering Research Center with small business

CLEMSON — The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a Phase IIR grant for $200,000 to Clemson University’s Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films, an NSF Research Center, to partner with Tetramer Technologies, LLC, a Clemson University spin-off company.

The grant will help Tetramer further develop encapsulation polymers for quantum-dot technology. Quantum dots are nanoscale crystalline structures that absorb and re-emit light. In the last five years, commercialization of quantum dots has exploded with their use as biological sensors. New uses for this technology, such as white light-emitting dots, show promise in providing lower cost sources of light when coupled with light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Through the partnership with Tetramer, Clemson's Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films (CAEFF) undergraduate and graduate research students will be exposed to entrepreneurial training.

“Our students will explore cutting-edge science while developing business acumen,” said Doug Hirt, director of CAEFF. “This is a unique opportunity to give our students a first-hand look at how small businesses operate from both research and commercialization standpoints.”

“This new grant will help advance Tetramer’s nanocrystal-encapsulation technology and accelerate its adoption into commercial applications,” said Tetramer technology manager Jeff DiMaio. “This collaboration has the potential to impact the solid-state lighting, solar-energy harvesting, and polymer-optical fibers markets, as well as benefit national security through development of radiation-detection technology.”

The NSF grant is intended to stimulate the transfer of innovative, leading-edge research performed at university Engineering Research Centers to small businesses, which then move research results into the marketplace. This collaboration has CAEFF acting as a catalyst to provide the research that Tetramer, a small business, needs to further make it successful and competitive. Tetramer, in turn, serves as a catalyst to get university research fast-tracked to commercialization.

The project is based partially on patented Clemson optical fluoropolymer technology licensed by Tetramer and originally developed in Clemson’s COMSET (Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies) laboratories for optical applications.

CAEFF has conducted research at the cutting edge of computational materials design since 1998. With major support from NSF, the center has advanced the state of the art in modeling polymer processes beyond any existing model in the world. CAEFF supports South Carolina’s growing knowledge-based economy by promoting a transformation from trial-and-error development to computer-based design of fibers and films.

Tetramer Technologies was formed in 2001 as a faculty-driven start-up company commercializing high-value research activities pursued at Clemson University. In addition to quantum-dot encapsulation, the company specializes in automotive fuel-cell membranes, gas-separation membranes for enhanced shale and tar sands oil recovery in North America, optical waveguides, piezopolymers and renewable resource materials. Tetramer currently employs 11 researchers; two of those on this project are Clemson Ph.D. graduates.