Energy Report

Energy I-Corps
2023
Annual Report
Energy I-Corps trains National Lab researchers in evaluating industry needs

and potential market applications for their technologies.
An initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions

Greetings,
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Technology Transitions

(OTT) hosted its eighth year of the Energy I-Corps program with unequivocal
success. This annual report presents the program’s latest impacts.
Energy I-Corps delivers intensive workforce development training

and funding to our National Lab researchers to support clean energy
technology commercialization. Delivering National Laboratory-developed
technologies to market is critical in meeting our climate goals, making this
program’s entrepreneurial experience invaluable. The on-the-job training
allows our researchers to avoid the “valleys of death” often faced along
the research, design, demonstration, and deployment continuum.
Since its inaugural year, Energy I-Corps has trained more than 450 DOE
researchers. That’s 450 researchers returning to their National Labs
with top-tier frameworks for industry engagement. The impact extends far past these participants as they bring
their learnings back to their teams to inform a culture of market awareness, in turn boosting the viability of lab
technologies.
In 2023, OTT welcomed its inaugural set of Topic 3 awardees. We’ve restructured the Energy I-Corps program
and added this completely new offering for the first time. Beyond the successful 10-week entrepreneurial training
cohorts (now referred to as Topic 2), there are two additional topics that make up the program. Energy I-Corps
Topic 1 is a pipeline development opportunity that funds selected National Labs to develop programming that can
directly encourage their researchers to apply and participate in future Energy I-Corps Topic 2 training cohorts.
The program’s new Topic 3 funds Energy I-Corps cohort graduates and their projects toward their next steps in
the commercialization process. This new topic is a way for OTT to even further support researchers in avoiding
valleys of death.
This year we also incorporated OTT’s new “Adoption Readiness Level” framework into Energy I-Corps training,
which gives the participants the language for commercialization at the start of the program. This is a complement
to Technology Readiness Levels and expands the view beyond technology hurdles to market barriers that must
be overcome for successful commercialization.
OTT’s mission is to expand the public impact of the department's research, design, demonstration, and
deployment portfolio. By investing in our lab researchers through Energy I-Corps, we are increasing capacity for
impactful innovation and building a strong research foundation for the economy and greater public good of the
nation. Each continued year of this program, we enable success for the clean energy transition and the national
security interests of the nation. In the history of the program, all 17 National Labs have participated in at least one
Energy I-Corps topic, and at least 15 program offices have provided funding to teams going through the Energy
I-Corps program, further demonstrating the program's value.
Energy I-Corps' reach continues to lengthen. I encourage you to be ambassadors for both the program and
technology commercialization. It’s only when the technology is transferred to the public that its full impact can
be realized.
Dr. Vanessa Z. Chan
Chief Commercialization Officer, U.S. Department of Energy

Director, Office of Technology Transitions
2 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

Contents
Program Overview .................................................................... 4 Success Stories........................................................................ 22
Fermians ................................................................................22
Energy I-Corps Portfolio FAQs .............................................. 7
Gamma Reality, Inc. ..............................................................23
Program Structure...................................................................... 8
GRIP .......................................................................................24
Quick Stats................................................................................... 9 nDETECT................................................................................25
Team Profiles............................................................................. 10 RouteE....................................................................................26
Avian Solar ............................................................................11 Tereform..................................................................................27
FeedForward K9.....................................................................12
By the Numbers........................................................................ 28
HighWind................................................................................13
IrrigationViz............................................................................14 Participation by Technology Program Offices................. 30
MAC.........................................................................................15 Post-Program Funding........................................................... 39
Mixed Plastics Upcycling......................................................16

Teaching Team.......................................................................... 42
RECOVER...............................................................................17
Program Team........................................................................... 43
SuperChips.............................................................................18
Technology Commercialization Internship Program..... 44
Tough Adhesive.....................................................................19
UBEM......................................................................................20 Thank You!.................................................................................. 46
UltraSep..................................................................................21 Acronyms.................................................................................... 47
For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 3

Program Overview
About Energy I-Corps

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) invests billions of dollars To better arm researchers to collaborate with industry and turn
every year into the National Lab complex. This investment research and development into demonstration and deployment,
allows the DOE National Laboratories and DOE plants and DOE employs a suite of efforts under the Energy I-Corps portfolio
sites to tackle the critical scientific challenges of our time—from to help researchers gain industry insight to guide innovation and
renewable energy to quantum computing to creating a more advance energy-related technologies toward commercialization.
resilient energy grid. The discoveries and innovations being
developed by the labs have an even greater impact when we Since 2015, DOE has offered the immersive 10-12 week Energy
invest in bringing these ideas to the market where they can I-Corps training program, also known as “Training Cohorts,”
benefit the nation and world. across the DOE National Lab system. In 2023, the program
expanded to include a pre-Training Cohort offering, introduced
Energy I-Corps became a part of the Office of Technology as Topic 1: Pipeline Development, and a post-Training Cohort
Transitions (OTT) portfolio in 2018. Established within DOE in offering, named Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps. Under Topic 1:
2015, OTT is committed to expanding the commercial impact of Pipeline Development, DOE National Labs and DOE plants and
DOE’s research, development, demonstration, and deployment sites propose projects aimed at increasing their researchers'
portfolio to advance the economic, energy, and security interests applications for future Topic 2: Training Cohorts. Under Topic 3:
of the nation. Post Energy I-Corps, graduates of the training cohorts apply for
funding to aid their next step toward commercialization (Figure 1).
New in FY23! New in FY23!
Topic 1: Pipeline Topic 2: Training

Development Topic 3: Post Energy
Cohort I-Corps
Program to fund projects
2-month training program
and programming that Program to fund Energy
to investigate the market
have the potential to I-Corps Topic 2 (Training
Participation potential and accelerate Previous
directly increase in Topic 1 is participation in
Cohort) graduates to
the commercialization of
participation in Topic 2: not required Topic 2 is advance their technology
DOE National Laboratory
Training Cohorts in to participate required to in the next step towards
and DOE plant and site
subsequent Energy I-Corps in Topic 2 participate in commercialization
technology Topic 3
lab calls.
Figure 1: Energy I-Corps Program Structure

Program Overview
While the bulk of this report will focus on Topic 2: Training All projects were fully funded by OTT, unless otherwise indicated.
Cohorts, we are pleased to share updates on Topic 1: Pipeline
Development and Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps before diving in • Argonne National Laboratory
to Training Cohort metrics. Brief overviews of each of the three
• Brookhaven National Laboratory
Energy I-Corps’ topics follows:
• Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory:
Topic 1: Pipeline Development
– Co-funded by Office of Science’s Accelerator R&D and
In response to the evolution of the Energy I-Corps program Production Program, Office of Science’s High Energy
within DOE and feedback from National Lab partners and DOE Physics Program, and OTT
program office supporters, OTT developed the Energy I-Corps
Pipeline Development (Energy I-Corps Topic 1) opportunity. Topic • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
1 is a refocused version of the previously offered Energy I-Corps
• Multi-Lab Collaboration with Ames National Laboratory,
“Satellite,” “Site,” or “Asynchronous” funding. Within this topic,
Idaho National Laboratory, and Thomas Jefferson National
DOE National Labs and DOE plants and sites are provided up
Accelerator Facility
to $100,000 to implement projects and programming that have
the potential to directly increase participation in subsequent • National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Energy I-Corps Training Cohorts. OTT provides each lab the • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
latitude to develop a program to best serve their unique research
community while seeding the idea of participation in Topic 2: • Savannah River National Laboratory
Training Cohorts. • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
In fiscal year (FY) 2023, nine projects supporting eleven labs were For additional information on the Topic 1 projects, visit
selected. The selected projects include a range of tasks such as https://www.energy.gov/technologytransitions/energy-i-corps-
customer discovery, pitch competitions, intern support preparing topics-1-and-3-fy-2023.
Topic 2 applications, and networking with local startup businesses.
The cumulative goals of the FY23 projects aim to provide lab-
specific entrepreneurial training to over 80 researchers and
increase the number of submissions to the 2024 Energy I-Corps
training cohorts by more than 15 new submissions.

Program Overview
Topic 2: Training Cohorts The following five projects were selected as the inaugural set of
awardees for this new topic. All projects are fully funded by OTT,
The founding program in the Energy I-Corps portfolio is the Topic
unless otherwise indicated.
2: Training Cohorts offering. Topic 2 invites teams of researchers
to participate in an immersive 10-12 week training, during which
the researchers define technology value propositions, conduct • Fermi National Laboratory: “High Power Electron Gun for
75 stakeholder discovery interviews, and explore viable market Metal Additive Manufacturing” (Cohort 3)
pathways for their technologies. Researchers return to their
– Co-funded by the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon
labs with a framework for industry engagement to guide future
Management (FECM) and OTT
research and inform a culture of market engagement within
the lab environment. In this way, Energy I-Corps ensures our • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: “Scale Up
investment in the DOE National Labs and DOE plants and sites Production Of Advanced Sorbents for Direct Air Capture
and maintains and strengthens long-term U.S. competitiveness. Application” (Cohort 4)
Topic 2 is managed by DOE’s National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. – Co-funded by FECM and OTT
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: “Solid State

Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps Bioreactor for The Conversion Of Gaseous Feedstocks to
Teams that complete Topic 2: Training Cohorts are excited Value Added Products” (Cohort 14)
about their newfound skills and strategies to commercialize their
technologies, but may lack funding for next steps. The Topic 3: • Sandia National Laboratories: “Fostering Industry
Post Energy I-Corps opportunity supports a subset of Training Engagement of SNL Membranes” (originally members of
Cohort graduates with a high likelihood of commercializing their Energy I-Corps Cohort 2)
technology. Teams can receive up to $100,000 to cover costs of
the next actionable step in their technology’s commercialization • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory: “Grid Resilience and
and facilitate the teams in reaching their next source of more Intelligence Platform” (GRIP) (Cohort 14)
substantive support to continue their journey to market.
For additional information on the Topic 3 projects, visit
The cumulative goals of the FY23 projects aim to engage over https://www.energy.gov/technologytransitions/energy-i-corps-
25 new external partners, produce five new National Laboratory topics-1-and-3-fy-2023.
Cooperative Research and Development Agreements or patent
license agreements, create five new prototypes, and implement
eight new technology tests or deployments. Each project also
has specific diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals,
including outreach to underrepresented customer segments and
engagement with students from underrepresented groups.

Energy I-Corps Portfolio FAQs
What is Energy I-Corps? Who can participate?

The goal of all efforts within the Energy I-Corps portfolio is to 1. Topic 1: Pipeline Development: DOE National Labs and
support and train DOE National Lab and DOE plant and site DOE plants and sites can apply. Applicants suggest projects
researchers to advance energy-related technologies toward and programming that have the potential to directly increase
commercialization. participation in future Energy I-Corps Training Cohorts
2. Topic 2: Training Cohorts: DOE National Lab and DOE plant
How many teams have participated? and site researchers wanting to pursue commercialization
1. Topic 1: Pipeline Development: All 17 National Labs have with a DOE National Lab IP can apply. This is a technology-
participated in either the Pipeline Development program or its agnostic program, but participants should fall within the
previous iterations, referred to as “Site” and “Satellite” funding. DOE investment portfolio including renewable energy,
efficiency, advanced materials, nuclear energy, fossil energy,
2. Topic 2: Training Cohorts: As of November 2023, 215 teams
environmental management, national security, and others.
from 12 National Labs have participated in Topic 2 over the
course of 17 cohorts and the pilot. 3. Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps: Teams that successfully
complete Topic 2: Training Cohorts are eligible to apply to
3. Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps: Five teams from four National
Topic 3.
Labs were awarded Post Energy I-Corps funding in its
inaugural year. Who supports the participants?
What are the benefits? 1. Topic 1: Pipeline Development: Submitted applications are
reviewed by OTT and shared with other DOE program offices
1. Topic 1: Pipeline Development: Each selected DOE Lab,
and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
plant, or site awardee develops a Topic 2-promoting program
as funding opportunities. OTT is the primary funder of the
that will most benefit their unique research community. This
Pipeline Development program. Programs from the Office of
provides researchers with a taste of commercialization
Science have also supported projects.
concepts and opportunities before deciding to commit to the
full Topic 2 program. Taking examples from awarded FY23 2. Topic 2: Training Cohorts: Submitted applications are
programs, participants may benefit from a lab-hosted, lighter reviewed by OTT and relevant DOE program offices.
version of Topic 2, startup engagement, market research The offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy;
support, or other programming offerings. Electricity; Environmental Management; FECM; Nuclear
Energy; Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency
2. Topic 2: Training Cohorts: Participants benefit from
Response; NNSA; and programs within the Office of Science
workshops taught by industry experts while gaining market
have supported teams.
insights gleaned from the more than 75 discovery interviews
conducted during the duration of the program. The training 3. Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps: Submitted applications are
equips DOE National Lab and DOE plant and site researchers reviewed by OTT and relevant DOE program offices and
with tools to evaluate the real-world relevance of their NNSA. OTT is the primary supporter of this opportunity.
technologies and viable pathways to market. These tools help FECM has also supported Topic 3 projects.
inform future research and potential partnerships at the DOE
National Labs and DOE plants and sites. How can I get involved?
3. Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps: Selected teams receive OTT solicits proposals for all three Energy I-Corps topics through
funding to support their next step in commercialization, to help a lab call. If you are interested in participating in Energy I-Corps,
avoid a valley of death in the commercialization pathway. please contact your lab’s Technology Transfer Office, or contact
[email protected] to learn more.
From this point onwards, this report will focus on Energy I-Corps Topic 2:
Training Cohorts. The following words will be used interchangeably:
Energy I-Corps, Topic 2, Training Cohorts, and cohorts.

Program Structure
For each Training Cohort of Energy I-Corps, National Labs Energy I-Corps comprises four key elements:
recruit researchers working on energy technologies that show
potential for commercial application. Researchers selected for Node: NREL serves as the node for this program. The node is
the program receive comprehensive training and conduct at responsible for developing and delivering the curriculum, as well
least 75 discovery interviews with industry stakeholders during as providing program guidance to participating labs. The node
the course of the program. manages both the opening and closing sessions, which involve
in-person and virtual instruction and presentations.
Once researchers complete the cohort program, they will have
developed important industry connections and insights to better Participating Labs: Participating DOE Labs and DOE plants
prepare their energy technologies for market acceptance and and sites recruit, assemble, and submit applications for each
deployment. In addition, they will have established an industry- cohort. The DOE Labs and DOE plants and sites play an integral
engagement framework applicable to future research. role in supporting teams before, during, and after the program.
Support might include assistance in identifying team members,
as well as technology transfer/technology deployment support for
Curriculum
commercialization plans identified by the team during training.
The Energy I-Corps curriculum was initially developed in
partnership with the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Teams: Applicants apply to Energy I-Corps as a team composed
Corps™ (I-Corps™) program. With the support of the National of a principal investigator with a commercially relevant
Labs and external industry advisors, NREL and OTT adapted technology, an entrepreneurial lead, and an industry mentor.
the National Science Foundation’s nationally recognized I-Corps The team works together to identify potential commercialization
training to meet the needs of the DOE Laboratory and DOE plant pathways for their selected technology, as well as opportunities
and site participants. where further development of the technology could lead to
commercial value.
Adjustments made to the I-Corps curriculum address the specific
challenges scientists working within the National Lab complex Training Program: Energy I-Corps Topic 2 spans 10 to 12
environment face when preparing their innovations for market, weeks, utilizing a custom-designed curriculum. During the
such as navigating the complexities of intellectual property, program, teams attend in-person and/or virtual sessions,
licensing opportunities, and startup development pathways. As participate in weekly webinars, and learn from faculty how to
more teams complete the training, OTT and NREL continue to systematically identify the most appropriate market applications
improve and enhance the Energy I-Corps Topic 2 curriculum to and commercialization pathways for their technologies.
best meet participant and industry needs. Participation requires a considerable amount of time spent outside
of the classroom conducting stakeholder discovery interviews.
To date, teams have participated from:
• Argonne National Laboratory • Lawrence Livermore National • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Laboratory
• Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Idaho National Laboratory • Sandia National Laboratories
• National Energy Technology Laboratory
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Energy I-Corps Topic 2: Training Cohort technologies have collectively attracted more than
$177 million in post-program funding. As of the end of the 17th training session in the fall
of 2023, teams have worked with 215 industry mentors and conducted 15,500 discovery
interviews to determine the commercial impact of their technologies.

Quick Stats
17 COHORTS of ENERGY I-CORPS

215 TEAMS | 12 NATIONAL LABORATORIES BRINGING ENERGY INNOVATIONS TO
25.5 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 23 Argonne National Laboratory

33.5 Idaho National Laboratory Other Technologies (26)
Advanced Manufacturing (28.5)
52 National Renewable
Energy Laboratory 3
Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory
Water Power Technologies (9) Advanced Manufacuring
& Materials (3.3)
Bioenergy
Technologies (23)
Wind Energy
Technologies (17)
3 National Energy
Technology Laboratory
TECHNOLOGY Building
Technologies (14)
Vehicle Technologies (19.5) AREAS Environmental
Management (2)
Solar Energy Technologies (5.8)
Fossil Energy and
Sandia National
31 Laboratories (2)
Office of Technology Transitions (4) Carbon Management (6.5)
Office of Science (3) Geothermal Technologies (4.5)
Lawrence Livermore
9 National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Office of Electricity (11) Hydrogen and Fuel
12 Laboratory National Nuclear Security Cell Technologies (4)
Lawrence Berkeley
16 National Laboratory 5 Los Alamos
National Laboratory
Administration (15) National Association
SLAC National Nuclear Energy (16.8) for Water Innovation (2)
2 Accelerator Laboratory
LEARNING FROM
215 Industry Mentors and 15,500 Stakeholder Discovery Interviews With Companies Like:
EPRI, Shell, Ford, World Bank, Breakthrough Energy, John Deere, Siemens Gamesa, Chevron, Eaton, Samsung, Lowes,
Johns Manville, LEGO, U.S. Army, Trane, Tesla, GM, Dow Chemical, 3M, Whirlpool, GE, Home Depot, Amazon
20+ New More than 20 teams launched $177M+ Post Energy I-Corps,
Businesses
new businesses based on
their Energy I-Corps Technology
$ Post Program
technologies have attracted
over $177M in post-program
Funding funding
15,500 Stakeholder Discovery Interviews 78 Licenses Executed

Energy I-Corps Team Profiles and Success Stories
Energy I-Corps Topic 2 aims to accelerate the engagement that guides future research and
deployment of energy technologies by delivering fosters a market-informed values back at the lab.
workforce development training and funding The program’s impact extends into the market
support to National Lab scientists and engineers. itself, with more than 20 new businesses launched
By empowering researchers to seek direct market based on Energy I-Corps technology and 78
feedback for their technology offerings, DOE- licenses executed.
supported innovations have a broader impact on
climate goals. The following pages showcase the success, both
during and after the program, of just a few of the
Since 2015, over 450 National Lab researchers teams that have participated in Energy I-Corps.
have matriculated through Energy I-Corps.
Participants graduate with a framework for industry

Team Profile
Avian Solar
Lab: Argonne National Laboratory
DOE: Solar Energy Technologies Office
Cohort: 15
Bridging Artificial Intelligence and

Ecology for Clean Energy
Advanced technology poses many opportunities in the commercial
sector. But sometimes unexpected lessons are learned while trying
to define that market. Yuki Hamada (left), entrepreneurial lead, and Adam Szymanski, principal
investigator, working towards commercializing an automated camera system
monitoring bird activity at solar facilities. Photo by Kira Vos
What the Avian Solar team experienced was how to roll through the
unexpected pivots.
The team also encountered unexpected resistance. Field
Argonne National Laboratory Principal Software Engineer Adam biologists, who manually monitor wildlife activity on-site, viewed
Szymanski and Remote Sensing Scientist Yuki Hamada said their the technology as a potential job threat.
project, funded by the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office,
“We never thought of [our technology] in that way, but Energy
arose from a pressing concern: why are bird carcasses being
I-Corps gave us the opportunity to think differently,” Hamada said.
reported at solar fields?
“We’re not replacing jobs; we’re creating new ones.”
As solar energy gained momentum in 2014, Hamada said, stories
By refining the voluminous video footage, she said, researchers
of birds colliding with solar panels began to surface, casting a
can focus on specific bird activities spotted by artificial
shadow on an otherwise eco-friendly technology. The true cause of
intelligence, streamlining the research process.
these on-site carcasses, whether they were dropped by predators,
died from collisions, or were stranded, remained a mystery. In the face of economic practicalities, the Avian Solar team
remains resolute in its objective. They intend to use their
The Avian Solar team devised an ingenious automated camera
innovative technology not as a roadblock but as a new tool to
system equipped with artificial intelligence to find out. Unlike
bolster the solar industry. With current SETO funding, the Avian
conventional monitoring, their tool distinguishes bird movements
Solar prototype, which processes video streams in real time
from other activities and, crucially, details collision events. The
to detect and categorize bird ativities, could be operational at
project aims to unveil the real impact of solar panels on avian
multiple U.S. solar facilities for testing within 6 months.
populations.
Szymanski said the project’s success lies not in capturing a
Szymanski said their journey through the Energy I-Corps
single massive market but in addressing the myriad of smaller
program—involving over 100 interviews with industry
needs researchers have when studying the relationship between
professionals—helped their mission evolve.
birds and solar fields—a testament to the adaptability and
“As we interviewed and went through the whole process, it potential of their pioneering solution.
completely changed the picture,” he said.
Their tool, they discovered, addressed diverse needs beyond

bird mortality. While they initially targeted large solar companies
grappling with bird-monitoring regulations, they found that these
regulations were geographically limited. As their interviews
deepened, they identified a variety of scientists who saw the value
of the raw data produced.

Team Profile
FeedForward K9
Lab: Idaho National Laboratory
DOE: Office of Nuclear Energy
Cohort: 14
Economics Versus Technology

Energy I-Corps projects can lead to diverse outcomes: a more
impulsive technological advancement could lead to a large
market, whereas a sound technological creation could without
funding or market interest will require pivots.
Ruixuan Li and Tina Miyake are working toward commercializing a visualization
The FeedForward K9 team, led by Ruixuan Li, a human factors technique that leverages artificial-intelligence capabilities, including machine
learning and control logic, to provide decision support for nuclear operators.
research engineer in Idaho National Laboratory’s Human
Photo from Idaho National Laboratory
Factors and Reliability Department, had the concept to provide
“feedforward” human automation to assist nuclear reactor control
room operators for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The team However, Li said, what the team heard repeatedly during industry
included human factors scientists Zach Spielman and Tina Miyake. interviews was, “That’s not what we want.”
Li said the experience in Energy I-Corps, which typically involves “Companies are only interested in meeting existing regulations,
extensive direct interviews with industry stakeholders, taught and there is no market for our technology or plans to advance it
them a hard lesson—sometimes the market is not receptive. yet,” Li said. “It sounds like [companies] think [the technology] is
feasible, but they don’t want to put money into [it at this time.].”
The technology behind FeedForward K9 is solid. Nuclear
incidents in reactor control rooms are often due to human The team's key takeaway from their experience in the Energy
errors during data collection, response planning, and execution. I-Corps program, is safety is important, but economics is the
Those random errors could be resolved by incorporating greater fundamental driver for technology commercialization. Examining
automation to help lead the way. what they learned, the team pivoted to look at what their
technology was capable of to help other users, perhaps field
In the human body, a feedforward automated response might be operators. Embracing the pivot, the team has identified and plan
shivering when we are cold to build up extra heat. In mechanical to explore the possible market of those working towards creating
engineering, however, a feedforward control system provides remote monitoring and automation standards.
sensors to detect disturbances affecting the machine. A built-in
mathematical model then provides necessary predetermined
responses to minimize the effect of the disturbance. The
feedforward visualization technique leverages the capabilities of
artificial intelligence technologies, including machine learning and
control logic, to provide decision support and alert operators.

Team Profile
HighWind
Lab: National Renewable Energy
Laboratory
DOE: Wind Energy Technologies Office
Cohort: 15
Disrupting the Wind Energy Industry

The reality of most technology is, if you want prime results, it
costs extra money to get it. This theory applies to cars, mobile
phones, health care, espresso makers, and, in this case, even Marc Henry de Frahan (left), entrepreneurial lead, and Ashesh Sharma, principal
investigator, working towards commercializing of a suite of open-source high-
wind turbines.
fidelity modeling tools capable of enabling long-distance simulation of flows. Photo
by Kira Vos
NREL Computational Scientist Ashesh Sharma and his team
have the technology and funding in place from DOE’s Wind
Energy Technologies Office to excel. The team also included “Our takeaway was that people do aspire to access higher
Marc Henry De Frahan from the Computational Science Center fidelity and accuracy,” he said. “However, as things stand, only a
and Shreyas Ananthan, industry mentor and Chief Technology handful of companies can realistically afford it. The cost remains
Officer at AscentOS. a formidable barrier. The only way to sway the industry is through
validation studies conducted on existing wind farms.”
Currently, their research results far surpass industry wind farm
and turbine design standards and could advance green energy Sharma said acquiring experimental or field data from these wind
efforts into the future, but convincing and proving this to industry farms is a monumental challenge, as the data is typically controlled
executives remains the true challenge. by turbine suppliers. This is a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma.
How can the team demonstrate the tool’s accuracy to potential
The HighWind team uses physics and the most powerful customers without access to their data, even when it is widely
supercomputers available to advance the wind energy industry. accepted that the physics and metrics being adopted are far more
A previous project, ExaWind, was bolstered by a billion-dollar precise than industry standards?
DOE initiative to resolve various applications on the fastest
supercomputers ever. It resulted in the development of a suite Since their involvement in Energy I-Corps, most of the team’s
of open-source high-fidelity modeling tools capable of simulating efforts have revolved around obtaining field data to formally
airflows across a range of turbine blade-length scales, spanning establish the tool’s accuracy. Although the project enjoys full
10 orders of magnitude to atmospheric conditions. The team funding and steady progress toward a robust product, the
applied to Energy I-Corps to explore viable market pathways for fundamental challenge persists—convincing companies to take the
ExaWind's commercialization. risk and invest in advancing their products.
“We created this software to simulate the highest ability of wind “Our goal now is to redefine industry norms. If higher-fidelity
physics possible,” Sharma said. “We didn’t consider the design models become the new benchmark, even smaller companies
solutions needed for a simple workstation. Our tool is also much won’t have an alternative but to adopt these models,” Sharma said.
more expensive when it comes to computational cost. Energy
With this pivot, the HighWind team is responding to what the
I-Corps was our attempt to find where ExaWind could fill in the
market actually needs, instead of pursuing a technology for
industry gaps and expand the user base of the software.”
which it might not be ready. As they continue to gather data and
Despite their technical accomplishments and validation of make strides, they are optimistic about the positive impact their
their tools, Sharma said persuading the industry to embrace innovation will have on the industry.
more precise, high-fidelity models at a higher cost remains the
challenge. The team conducted extensive interviews with industry
experts and executives.

Team Profile
IrrigationViz Kershaw said the goal was to create a visual, Sim City-
style: IrrigationViz, a decision-support tool offering high-level
estimates for irrigation modernization, integrating public and
Lab: Idaho National Laboratory + Pacific private data with geographic information systems. Developed
Northwest National Laboratory in collaboration with the Farmer’s Conservation Alliance and
with input from several irrigation districts, IrrigationViz aimed to
DOE: Water Power Technologies Office bridge the gap for districts struggling with limited resources to
strategize and plan long term, despite the availability of federal
Cohort: 12 funding for modernization.
However, trust for and adoption of IrrigationViz remained

The Realities and Joys of Taking Tech challenging as the team navigated the balance between
simplicity and accuracy. Through nearly 100 interviews and
to Market interactions with industry leaders and federal agencies during
the Energy I-Corps program, the team grappled with finding a
The Energy I-Corps team, funded by DOE’s Water Power viable path to market.
Technologies Office, ultimately learned that the market for
technology is sometimes a gamble based on customer needs. “It's a very difficult problem, because for people to use the tool,
they must be able to trust the tool. We’re trying to take something
Their project, IrrigationViz, led by Idaho National Laboratory with that certified engineers do and turn it into a point-and-click
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and industry partners, automation thing. It’s a tall order,” Kershaw said.
addresses the inefficiencies and potential hazards of aging water
delivery systems in the West. Assessing and planning for the The team explored various models, including supporting federal
modernization of these systems can be cost-prohibitive and out of entities in grant evaluations and potential open-source avenues,
reach for many smaller irrigation districts. only to realize the challenges posed by inconsistent evaluation
methods and the districts’ limited abilities and willingness to pay.
Team Entrepreneurial Lead James Kershaw, a Pacific Northwest
National Lab software engineer with the Energy and Environment “The goal of Energy I-Corps is discovering the path to market.
Directorate, said the tool is designed to aid irrigation district You must come up with a business model. What would it look
managers in pre-assessing projects and estimating water loss, like if we let this grow legs and run free out of the lab, right?”
groundwater impacts, and potential hydropower generation, Kershaw said.
before committing to costly engineering valuations. The team also
included Idaho National Laboratory Principal Investigator and By going through the Energy I-Corps program and speaking
Data Scientist Shiloh Elliott and Industry Mentor Jeff Smyth of with potential stakeholders, the team concluded that
Sapere Consulting. commercialization might not be feasible at this time without
buy-in from the target market. The team nevertheless embraced
“The gap is that it takes money to get money,” Kershaw said. “In the learnings and experiences gained through the program.
order to qualify for federal grants, you need to provide a proposed Despite the challenges, Kershaw said he found joy in the process
design. If you have an engineer on staff, great. That person can underscoring that sometimes the journey and the learnings it
assess the need, draw up a design, and assess the proposal. brings are just as valuable as the end goal. For the time being,
Some districts do not have the resources.” while keeping one eye open for a commercialization window, the
team continues incorporating their market-pull approach back at
the lab to be better researchers.
To bring the irrigation industry into the modern century, the IrrigationViz team created a software system that serves as a master-planning tool modeling high-level costs and
plans for a project. Photo from IrrigationViz, PNNL

Team Profile
MAC
Lab: National Energy Technology Laboratory
DOE: Office of Technology Transitions
Cohort: 12
A Deep Dive Into Oil Drilling and

Enhanced Research
This Energy I-Corps team from the National Energy Technology
Laboratory jumped headlong into the world of oil-drilling operations,
creating not just a new market for their technology but invaluable
lessons to guide their future work.
Led by National Energy Technology Laboratory Research Scientist To capture natural gas instead of burning it, the MAC team uses a microwave
reactor with an electric-based process to convert the methane into a higher-value
Christina Wildfire and Chemical Engineer Daniel Haynes, who chemical commonly used in plastics manufacturing. Photo from MAC, NETL
serves as portfolio lead for methane conversion, Team Microwave
Assisted Catalysis developed a novel on-site microwave reactor
on a skid system, which they then took through the Energy I-Corps
big drillers have the resources to bring in natural gas pipelines for oil
program, funded by OTT.
sites to avoid flaring. The more independent drillers don’t have those
Methane, predominantly found in natural gas, becomes a byproduct resources and suffer more from the legislative changes.”
of oil drilling, leading to the process of flaring—burning off the gas
The oil-drilling companies told their group that if the methane
on-site to reduce emissions. While converting methane to less-
conversion technology was economic, they would use it, but selling
harmful compounds, flaring still contributes significantly to carbon
just a reactor was not a viable option.
dioxide emissions. It is also banned in several states, including
Colorado for new drilling sites, and this trend is expected to continue. “We quickly realized we couldn’t sell them a reactor. We would need
a startup company to provide a service,” Wildfire said.
Wildfire said their reactor offered a solution: converting the natural
gas, typically flared off, into valuable chemicals directly at the drilling This led the team to learn more about other companies also
site. This business model, serving oil drillers, included complete taking natural gas and converting it into hydrocarbons. She said
installation and repurposing of chemicals. one company even took natural gas to power generators for
supercomputer banks for companies like Disney’s animation
Under the mentorship of industry veteran Terry Hanahan, the team
computing groups.
dove into the complexities of oil drilling and the impacts of legislation
on smaller drillers. What they discovered during the Energy I-Corps Looking back at their time in Energy I-Corps, Wildfire said, the team
program was their initial target audience—major oil companies— will continue their research, finalizing catalysts and scaling the
was off-base. They shifted focus to service industry companies and process, poised to contribute meaningfully to reducing emissions
smaller drilling operations, learning quickly that cold calling to set and transforming energy production.
up surprise interviews would get them much further than relying on
scheduling support. “[Energy I-Corps] completely changed my mindset on research,”
she said, “I want to do science because I think it makes a
“We learned so much about that industry, and how oil drillers do difference. I want to make sure my technology leaves the lab.
not consider flaring as a problem, but if you talk to legislators, they I use the techniques we learned all the time, like customer
agree it’s a big issue and want to ban it. It got complicated fast,” discovery. I find out about the industry and now it’s a starting
Wildfire said. “It’s becoming more of an issue in certain states. The point for all my projects.”

Team Profile
Mixed Plastics Upcycling

Lab: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
DOE: Advanced Manufacturing Office*
Cohort: 15
Revolutionizing Plastic Recycling With

Organocatalysts
More than 400 million metric tons of plastic is produced each
year, and over 80% are not recycled. The different physical
properties of material used in bottles, packaging, textiles, Tomonori Saito (left), principal investigator, and Md Arifuzzaman, entrepreneurial
and other consumer goods turn recycling mixed plastics into lead, working towards commericalizing of a new organocatalyst-based technology to
recycle mixed plastics in a single batch. Photo from Tomonori Saito, ORNL
a complex undertaking. At the same time, the demands of
presorting makes plastic recycling inefficient and expensive. Even
when a single type of plastic can be isolated, current recycling mentors supplied critical direction in establishing a pathway
methods mostly deliver down-cycled plastics and chemicals only to commercialization for this breakthrough mixed plastic
suitable for reuse in lower-quality products. recycling technology.
A new organocatalyst-based technology from Oak Ridge National Following program completion, the Entrepreneurial Lead
Lab makes it possible to recycle mixed plastics in a single of the Mixed Plastics Upcycling team, Md Arifuzzaman,
batch—eliminating costly sorting and increasing the plastic founded a startup named Re-Du and licensed the core
recycling rate. The efficient process transforms traditionally technology. Re-Du was awarded a DOE Lab-Embedded
unrecyclable waste into widely used chemicals, while cutting Entrepreneurship Program fellowship through Oak Ridge’s
energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, compared with Innovation Crossroads to support entrepreneurial growth and
petroleum-based chemical production. It can be used to technology validation. Additionally, the Energy I-Corps team
selectively deconstruct diverse plastics including polyethylene submitted a nonprovisional international patent application
terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate (PC), polyurethane (PU), and for the mixed plastic deconstruction process and published a
polyamide (PA), while keeping cellulose and commodity plastics signature study, "Selective deconstruction of mixed plastics
such as polyethylene (PE), and polypropylene (PP) intact. The by a tailored organocatalyst," in the peer-reviewed journal
new organocatalyst also offers better stability when exposed to Materials Horizons.
air and moisture, plus lower toxicity than metal-based catalysts.
Beyond providing a powerful new method to combat plastic
Through Energy I-Corps, the Mixed Plastic Upcycling team waste and climate change, ORNL’s recycling technology
gained a real-world understanding of industry needs throughout could be a game changer for a number of other products,
the plastics supply chain. Interviews and marketplace exploration such as automotive and aerospace components. This will
gave the developers greater insight into the priorities and play a crucial role in creating the closed-loop economy that is
challenges faced by recycling processers, chemical producers, needed to move the nation closer to net-zero emissions and a
and polymer manufacturers. Input from industry stakeholders and clean energy future.
*In 2023, the Advanced Manufacturing Office restructured to the Industrial

Efficiency & Decarbonization Office and the Advanced Materials & Manufacturing
Technologies Office

Team Profile
RECOVER
Lab: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
DOE: Advanced Manufacturing Office* +
Vehicle Technologies Office
Cohort: 12
From Athletics to Autos: Vitrimer

Innovations in Sustainability
Suh-Jane Lee (pictured), principal investigator, with Wenbin Kuang and Leo Fifield,
entrepreneurial leads, are working toward commercializing of a technology that
Most conventional epoxies, nylons, and polypropylenes used
reduces greenhouse gas emissions by converting CO2 to a value-added material for
to manufacture automotive parts, electrical components, and various applications. Photo by Senthil Subramaniam, PNNL
construction materials are made from petroleum. These thermosets
and thermoplastics are easy and cheap to produce but can be
easily damaged by mechanical stress and exposure to extreme Following an initial focus on applying vitrimer technology to athletic
temperatures. While newer thermoset composites are strong, they equipment as a market with relatively low barriers to entry, in the last
are also expensive, extremely difficult to recycle, and produced using year, the RECOVER team has expanded its efforts to begin targeting
methods that emit hazardous toxins. At the same time, the recent the automotive industry.
push toward electrification demands even more lightweight vehicle
Taking lessons learned in dealing with manufacturers of expensive
and aeronautical components.
custom bicycles, researchers initiated dialogues with the automotive
A new class of lightweight engineered plastics, called vitrimers, can industry to determine the most likely pathways to market in that
deliver better performance, more impressive impact resistance, and sector. Input from the team’s industry mentor and extensive research
a longer shelf life than typical thermoset composites. Vitrimers are have helped identify value propositions to more closely address the
also easier to manufacture, repair, and recycle, and the recovery of high throughput and budgetary dictates of auto manufacturing with
materials for second use helps recoup original production costs. this durable and lightweight material.
The Recyclable CarbOn-negative VitrimER (RECOVER) team’s In the last year, the Energy I-Corps RECOVER team has partnered
technology produces polycarbonate from carbon dioxide as a with the University of Akron and Raytheon Technologies Research
vitrimer precursor. Reuse of 20% of the carbon dioxide waste gas, Center. Together, they are moving forward with parallel development
combined with bio-based constituents, yields vitrimer materials of recyclable carbon fiber composites using vitrimer resins that
with as much as 50% sustainable content and delivers significant are more energy efficient to produce, stronger, longer-lasting, and
environmental benefits at both ends of the supply chain. These novel contribute to a circular economy. This ancillary work is funded
vitrimers establish a beneficial use for the most significant source of by a $1.9 million grant from DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing
greenhouse gas while simultaneously decreasing pollutants related and Bioenergy Technology Offices as part of the Bio-Optimized
to manufacturing, reducing production waste, and presenting greater Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the
potential for reuse and upcycling. Environment (BOTTLE™) program.
*In 2023, the Advanced Manufacturing Office restructured to the Industrial

Efficiency & Decarbonization Office and the Advanced Materials & Manufacturing
Technologies Office

Team Profile
SuperChips
Lab: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
DOE: Advanced Scientific Computing
Research (ASCR) Program
Cohort: 11
Tackling Quantum Computing Control

Quantum computing has revolutionized society’s ability to run
Dilip Vasudevan (pictured), principal investigator, with George Michelogiannakis and
complex programs much faster than classical computers. However, Shyam Dwaraknath, entrepreneurial leads, accelerated the commercialization of chip
even state-of-the-art quantum computers struggle to meet the designs for high-performance computing architecture using superconducting devices.
needs put upon them by today’s increasingly sophisticated Photo from SuperChips, LBNL
demands at the speed users expect. Quantum computers are

currently limited in size, speed, memory, and scale-up, due to the
need for a large amount of wiring. The SuperChips team conducted customer interviews during
Energy I-Corps to identify and define quantum system control
The SuperChips team designs advanced microchips with
problems. The team discovered two main priorities well suited for
decreased structural and functional complexity using
their custom microchip solution—quantum system control and
superconducting devices that enhance complementary metal-oxide
heterogeneous hardware accelerator design for machine learning
semiconductor transistors. This strategy reduces the number of
and neuromorphic systems.
wires necessary to control quantum computing architecture, which
demands many readout and control signals for operation. The During Energy I-Corps, SuperChips connected with two specific
SuperChips Team builds virtual blueprints for these specialized quantum system customers interested in their product. Customer
chips, sends them to partners for manufacturing, and licenses them interviews led to the team's incorporation of a business to design
to customers. and prototype their chips.
Dilip Vasudevan, principal investigator for SuperChips, says The SuperChips technology has since been selected as an R&D
companies wishing to sell quantum computers in the near future 100 Awards Finalist and for DOE’s Emerging Tech Studio, offered
“need someone to help them build these efficient control chips. by OTT and NNSA, in partnership with FedTech. SuperChips
Without this missing piece of the puzzle, [quantum computers] was also among the top 10% of the 15,000 applications for Y
cannot sell,” he said. Combinator.
These highly efficient designs are based on reconfigurable In the last year, SuperChips pivoted to extend and apply their
computing architectures that allow the team to customize technology to the fintech and cybersecurity industries. Continuing
performance to meet the needs of specific quantum system to incorporate the market interviewing skills learned in the Energy
applications. Applications like machine learning, digital signal I-Corps program, the team conducted interviews with bankers,
processing, financial algorithms, and scientific simulations can run trading companies, and other stakeholders to determine their
much faster with this technology compared to current transistor- specific needs. SuperChips is currently focused on building
based electronic chips. hardware accelerator chip designs to accelerate algorithms at
trading companies and machine learning startups. This will enable
faster trades, inference, and training when discovering more
customers in the quantum control domain.

Team Profile
Tough Adhesive
Lab: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
DOE: National Nuclear Security
Administration
Cohort: 15
Tough Adhesive Team

Doubles Down on Tech
From left, Menisha Mahappu Koralalage, Bokyung Park, Sylas Rehbein, and Md
This research group from Oak Ridge National Laboratory came into Anisur Rahman are working toward the commercialization of an exceptionally strong
the Energy I-Corps process well-established and fully supported. A and tough adhesive that could be used in a variety of applications. Photo by Kira Vos
patent on their recyclable and green tough adhesive was already filed
and numerous media profiles already covered their concept story.
“Industry adhesives are very strong, but most of them are very brittle.
Essentially, their published technology takes used commodity It gives you strength but can break very easily. There are other
plastics—something there is certainly no shortage of worldwide—and adhesives that are soft and give you the extension, but they do not
turns the material into a much stronger, more reliable, and entirely give you the strength,” Rahman said. “There is a gap here and we
recyclable adhesive. feel our adhesive can give you both extension and strength.”
Researchers applied polymer chemistry to transform the plastics into The team, comprising three entrepreneurial leads and an industry
a bonding agent with a rare combination of strength and elasticity, mentor, found strong support within the industry, thanks to the Energy
making it one of the toughest materials ever reported. The technology I-Corps interview process. Ultimately, they found a potential licensee,
adapts to bear heavy loads, tolerate extreme stress and heat, and and are, currently, discussing a licensing deal with an industry partner
reversibly ties to various surfaces, including glass, aluminum, and who produces different polymers for building applications. Rahman
steel, already turning heads in the scientific community. said the discussions point to the company integrating the Tough
Adhesive team’s technology into its own adhesive-making process.
Oak Ridge National Lab Team Lead and Synthetic Polymer Chemist, The result would help fund the de-risking of the team’s product and
Anisur Rahman, said the Energy I-Corps experience brought an eye- fast-track it through further studies.
opening discovery process to the table in business discovery.
During their time spent during the Energy I-Corps program, the Tough
“We are scientists, so we don’t know a lot about things on the Adhesive team ended up exploring customer discovery, connection,
marketing side. We know how to develop the product,” he said. and transformation. The team not only developed a groundbreaking
adhesive but also forged valuable industry relationships and gained a
Their experience in Energy I-Corps ultimately expanded their
deeper understanding of the market, positioning their technology for
horizons from the realms of engineering and chemistry to the
success in the competitive world.
much different world of marketing and economics. Interacting with
over 75 industry contacts, the Tough Adhesive team refined their
understanding of where their product could truly stick.

Team Profile
UBEM
DOE: Building Technologies Office
Cohort: 12
CityBES Finds Collaboration Toward

Real-World Impact
Team Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) from Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory not only found the Energy I-Corps
program insightful, but also that it equipped them with the know-
how to advance their goals through deeper collaboration. Tianzhen Hong, Kaiyu Sun, and Jeetika Malik are working towards the commercialization of a web-
based data and computing platform providing energy modeling, benchmarking, and performance
visualization of a city’s building stock. Photo from LBNL
Supported by DOE’s Building Technologies Office, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory Senior Scientist Tianzhen Hong
led the urban building energy modeling project with Research A testament to the program’s impact, the team’s interview with
Scientist Kaiyu Sun, Post-Doctoral Researcher Jeetika Malik, Portland General Electric materialized into a multi-million-dollar
and industry mentor Lowell Chu, an energy program manager at research collaboration to assess the impact of heat waves
the City and County of San Francisco. on utility operations, particularly during power outages in
vulnerable communities.
A cornerstone in the ambitious drive toward achieving
carbon neutrality by 2050, CityBES (City Buildings, Energy & Moving forward, Malik said, the true value of Energy I-Corps was
Sustainability) is more than just a modeling tool. The technology they learned how to present their technology in a business setting,
harnesses the international open data standard, CityGML, and and those techniques opened doors to further collaboration.
employs the physics-based energy modeling tool EnergyPlus®
to simulate building energy use and calculate savings from “That was the best experience,” Sun said. “We would never have
energy retrofits. It embodies urban retrofitting at scale, including done that without Energy I-Corps. The entire process led to new
electrification, energy efficiency, thermal resilience analysis, and projects being funded and more support for other technical work.”
cost-benefit analysis.
The CityBES technology eventually went on to win a 2022 R&D
“It targets urban-scale, city-scale, or even neighborhood- 100 Award because of what the team learned in the program—
scale—multiple, hundreds or even thousands of buildings can be refining their value proposition, framing more-effective interview
evaluated,” Sun said. questions, and exploring the unique facets of CityBES. It further
led to multiple funded projects through DOE’s Solar Energy
The team’s goal of joining Energy I-Corps was to learn about Technologies Office and another for Los Angeles County.
potential CityBES customers and how it could be useful to them
as a product or service. It was enlightening. In essence, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
team's journey through Energy I-Corps showcases the
“It was like peeling an onion,” Sun said. “We thought the cities synergy of innovation, collaboration, and real-world impact,
were our customers, but after talking to them we learned most of with CityBES poised to be an instrumental force in the future
the cities don’t have the capabilities of doing their own modeling. of building decarbonization.
They must hire consultants to do it for them. That’s when
we considered that consultants might be a better partner for
CityBES, or both [cities and consultants].”

Team Profile
UltraSep
Lab: Los Alamos National Laboratory
DOE: Bioenergy Technologies Office
Cohort: 12
Advancing Particle Separation in

Brewing and Beyond
Separating particles from liquids is a critical process in many
established industries ranging from food and beverages to
toxic chemicals. However, processes using conventional From left, Jim Coons, Karla Erickson, Audrey Roman, and Jackie Dorhout applied a
membrane-free filtration technology that removes particles from a range of liquids to
technologies like centrifugation and membrane filtration actinide hydroxides. Photo from UltraSep, LANL
have considerable disadvantages.
Breweries currently prefer to use centrifuges to clarify beer, but The UltraSep team conducted an in-depth analysis of the New
few have them due to high purchase, maintenance, and energy Mexico craft beer market during Energy I-Corps. Through
costs. Centrifugation often removes more particles than intended, interviews with brewmasters, equipment manufacturers, grain
negatively affecting the quality and taste of the final product. suppliers, and other stakeholders, the team found that the market
Membrane filtration can also remove more particles than desired prioritizes quality and is open to new strategies for clarifying beer.
and impart unwanted tastes.
UltraSep can provide brewers with a more-selective clarification
During the process, workers are exposed to hazardous process, allowing them to remove large particles that decrease
radioactive doses while manually adjusting the pH, using strip stability and shelf life while leaving in smaller molecules that
tests to monitor pH changes, and performing lifting and pouring may enhance flavor, taste experience, and quality. “We are
actions to transfer the suspensions into filter holders. The filtration encouraged by this technology’s ability to modify the chemical
process is slow, susceptible to delays due to clogging, and composition of beer compared to centrifugation,” said Technical
difficult to predict and control. Project Manager Jim Coons. “We are working to understand if
UltraSep can create a cost-competitive path forward for brewers
Ultrasonic filtration or separation (UltraSep) is an emerging to produce beer with the same or superior consumer experience
technology that removes particles from liquids using a silent and stability.”
standing wave. The ultrasonic field traps microparticles with
different densities than the liquid while allowing the liquid to flow Since Energy I-Corps, the technology readiness level of UltraSep
through. The particles are moved laterally to nearby nodes, where has increased from 4 to 6, meaning the team advanced their
they quickly clump together and settle to the bottom of the vessel technology from being used only in a lab environment to
for easy capture. prototype demonstration. The team has received additional
funding totalling more than $1.5 million and partnered with local
Compared to membrane filtration, UltraSep provides more craft breweries to test the technology within the New Mexico
selective particle removal and transforms slow, unpredictable Small Business Assistance program.
filtration rates into a well-controlled, continuous process. The
technology requires very little maintenance and does not The UltraSep team has also found success in removing actinide
generate the chemical wastes produced when membranes hydroxide from wastewater, resulting in promising solutions for
require cleaning or the solid wastes produced when membranes the water treatment industry. “The UltraSep process is automated
must be replaced. and can be operated remotely with very little involvement from an
operator,” Coons explained. “By not using a membrane, we have
removed the clogging scenario, reduced the volume of secondary
waste, and increased processing rates and predictability.”

Success Stories
Fermians
Lab: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
DOE: Advanced Manufacturing Office
(+ Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Jayakar CHarles Thangaraj
(pictured), principal investigator,
Management + Office of Technology Transitions) with Daniel Bowring, entrepreneurial
lead, are working toward the
Cohort: 3 commercialization of a compact
accelerator that fires electron beams
to create metal parts
Photo by Tom Nicol, FNAL
From Fermians to Metal Zapper
“Energy I-Corps gives you a robust toolkit,” he said. “It gives
When the Energy I-Corps organizers asked the team for a you an experimental approach to the discovery process. If you
name for their project, the team from Fermilab was downright propose to build something and potential partners don’t like it,
pragmatic. Because they were all from Fermi and did not know that’s great; you take that as data and then keep honing toward
what their final product would look like, they called themselves what people actually want. It crystallized an important question
the Fermians. Today, Senior Technology Development and for me: ‘Do you want to build something that actually solves a
Commercialization Manager Jayakar CHarles Thangaraj thought pain point for a reasonably large set of people, or do you just
of a different name he feels fits better. want to build something cool?’”
“Maybe I would call it metal zapper,” he said, “because our Since participation in Energy I-Corps, Fermilab’s compact
electron beam technology melts metal powder to create parts.” accelerator project received millions of dollars of funding for
construction. Currently, Thangaraj and his IARC team at Fermilab
The technology is a compact accelerator that fires electron
are working on building the accelerator prototype through Energy
beams (e-beams) to create metal parts—like what most 3D
I-Corps Topic 3. However, Thangaraj continually focuses on the
printers do with lasers. However, the e-beam can melt refractive
lessons he learned from Energy I-Corps.
metals, such as tungsten, molding those into items with much
more durability than plastic. The compact accelerator already has “When I see any research project at the lab, I just start thinking
many different uses, such as enabling durable road pavements about who else could use it,” Thangaraj said. “It’s not only
and wastewater treatment, but Thangaraj and his team came in about technology; it’s about solving a problem that’s specific,
looking for another vertical to use. measurable, and direct. There’s a world that’s bigger than
science. We can all be better listeners.”
“We wanted to look for something different, something that had
not been tried before,” he said. “We initially proposed this for use To illuminate his newfound outlook on projects, Thangaraj related
on the vulcanization of tires, but through dozens of interviews, we a story about a project in which his colleagues needed to solve
found there was not a big market, so we pivoted.” a challenge that involved joining two metals to operate under
cold temperatures. They believed gold would be a good option,
The interviews were part of the Energy I-Corps program, and
because it is a good conductor. He suggested the team consider
it helped the team discover a niche market for e-beam molded
how expensive it would be to manufacture at scale using gold as
metal for medical parts, machine parts, and more. Thangaraj felt
the conductor material.
the Energy I-Corps experience was so transformative that he
became a huge advocate and now helps teach “mini-I-Corps” “Someone is going to be creative and replace the gold, so why
cohorts as part of the Topic 1 programming hosted at Fermilab. don’t we replace it right now?” he said. “It’s important to think in
scale and pay attention to manufacturing issues even at the R&D
prototype stage. Fortunately, our team found a new solution, not
a perfect one, but it works.”
The Fermilab team is an awardee of OTT’s Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps funding opportunity.
For this project, the team is working with a partner to build and test two cathodes to
demonstrate that the cathodes can meet commercialization specifications.

Success Stories
Gamma Reality, Inc.

DOE: Environmental Management Andy Haefner, principal investigator,
with Erika Suzuki, entrepreneurial
Cohort: 6 lead, accelerated the
commercialization of a technology
that enables users to “visualize’
gamma-ray emitting radioactive
sources by producing 3D maps
Gamma Reality, Inc.’s LAMP of an area of interest in real-time.
Photo from Erika Suzuki
to Find Radiation
Radiation is an invisible hazard, and detectors, historically, were Participating in Energy I-Corps helped GRI explore potential target
only geared toward expert users. Additionally, older detectors cannot markets, and in 2019, GRI won both the Berkeley Lab and DOE
pinpoint precisely where the hazard is. That is where Gamma National Laboratory Accelerator pitch competitions. After Energy
Reality, Inc.’s (GRI) new Localization and Mapping Platform (LAMP) I-Corps, GRI developed the use case for its first target market:
comes in. nuclear power. In January 2020, GRI launched full-time operations.
“The technologies we developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab GRI employs 11 people, and Suzuki says it can support the future
broke ground because we were able to visualize the radiation in a of the current nuclear power fleet, as well as the development of
3D map of the environment in real time,” Erika Suzuki, co-founder next-generation nuclear reactors. LAMP helps plants more efficiently
of GRI and head of business development, said. “Now, anyone and safely plan work, which helps reduce radiation exposure for
can look at a map and identify where a hazard is. We still provide employees and operating costs.
important information, such as dose rate and isotope identification,
One of GRI’s partners, Dominion Energy, recently won a 2023
but the real innovation is in the localization of radiation visualization.
Nuclear Energy Institute Top Innovative Practice Award for their work
Because you’re detecting in real time, you can map out a hotspot
with LAMP and deploying it remotely on Boston Dynamics’ SPOT
and immediately leave to reduce your exposure as needed.”
robot.
GRI started when the team participated in Energy I-Corps’ sixth
“We’re excited to continue shipping LAMPs out the door,” Suzuki
cohort in 2017. After establishing the technology, the startup
said. “We’re also continuing to expand LAMP’s capabilities. LAMP
conducted research campaigns all over the world, and, wherever
provides a wealth of data, so there are huge opportunities.”
they went, people kept asking the same question.
She also has an important message for others considering
“‘Where can we get one?’” Suzuki said. “‘It would help make my
participating in Energy I-Corps.
job safer and enable me to better understand and communicate
where the radiation is.’ Inspired by these experiences and our “Coming from a non-technical background myself,” she said. “I want
time in Energy I-Corps, we started thinking about how we could to tell others that you don’t need to be a scientist or engineer or have
commercialize the technology.” a Ph.D. to commercialize technology.”
Suzuki called the experience with Energy I-Corps a critical turning .
point in how the team built up the company.
“I realized that to truly make an impact, the technology would

need to leave the lab so it could be used in the real world,” she
said. “I previously had no interest in launching a startup, but I was
really fascinated by the commercialization process, especially
after learning more about it during Energy I-Corps. Every day,
the program taught us how to ask better questions and gain new
perspectives into how our technology could be used by different
people for different use cases. We were also able to test out various
user engagement strategies and fail in a friendly environment. We’re
still using what we learned in Energy I-Corps today.”

Success Stories
GRIP
Lab: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
DOE: Office of Electricity (+ Office of
Technology Transitions)
Cohort: 14
Predicting Where Outages May Happen

It sounds like magic: knowing where a power outage may likely occur
before it happens so a utility can take appropriate action either right Alyona Teyber, principal investigator, with Gustavo Cezar, entrepreneurial lead, is
before or soon after a grid disruption takes place. working toward the commercialization of a technology-agnostic methodology to
present analytics that can be deployed on any electrical utility platform.
“If you know there will be a wildfire in a certain area,” said Alyona Photo from SLAC
Teyber, staff engineer at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and

principal investigator for the Grid Resilience and Intelligence Platform “As a person with an engineering background, I had very little
(GRIP), “you can better prepare for it ahead of time. You can stage understanding of the business side of things before Energy I-Corps,”
your crews, and you can reconfigure your systems so you can Teyber said. “It gave me training and brought me up to speed to be
better ride out the event while maintaining safety and quality service able to give this thing legs. Learning how to approach people, how
to customers.” to communicate, learning to listen before communicating my project,
learning to find commonalities, and learning to de-risk in a way that’s
The GRIP tool takes data sets and analyzes them to help predict effective rather than what I think they want to see.”
what is most likely to happen during a disaster or weather event.
For example, the GRIP team analyzed the vulnerability of wooden The GRIP team continues to validate their tools with new potential
electric poles. users and pitch to funders to further their technology adoption.
“We’re able to do a bulk analysis on which poles will fail at which “The next step is to get a full validation suite and a report from
part of the network,” Teyber said. “We do an analysis on the pole, Southern California Edison,” Teyber said. “See if we can get a hook
considering the tilt, the wind, the framework, and we would to continue forward [with the technology's commercialization.]"
predict when it would hit failure if there was a sustained wind in a
certain direction.”
With this knowledge, GRIP users can deploy crews ahead of

time, at the same time determining which outage would be the
highest priority. The GRIP team is an awardee of OTT’s
“There might be some poles that might be about to fall down, but Topic 3: Post Energy I-Corps funding
they are supporting something that’s not crucial,” Teyber said. “The opportunity. With this award, the team is
ones that are supporting a neighborhood that doesn’t have a backup
system in place would be priorities.”
partnering with Post Road Foundation to
expand GRIP’s market reach to include
After going through the Energy I-Corps program, the GRIP team
is now working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security electric cooperatives.
and other DOE offices to develop new use cases and find paths to
commercialization. Southern California Edison is also testing the
GRIP system. GRIP is also on the verge of working with
additional utilities.

Success Stories
nDETECT
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
DOE: National Nuclear Security
Administration
Cohort: 14
nDETECT Team Wins Prize to Advance

Pollutant Monitoring Technology
When the nDETECT team went through Energy I-Corps, they were
hoping to break ground with their technology. They did not expect to
break ground in a different way.
Mara Schindelholz, principal investigator, with Wendy Rue, entrepreneurial lead, is
working toward the commercialization of a nitrogen dioxide sensor technology for
The Energy I-Corps instructors, who voted each week during the real-time monitoring of pollutant gases. Photo from Sandia National Lab
3-month program of nDETECT’s Cohort 14, chose to award a
$25,000 prize, the Energy I-Corps Commercialization Award, to “This sensor was originally developed for in-situ monitoring of
Schindelholz and co-team member Wendy Rue for their efforts to off-gases within a nuclear weapon,” Schindelholz said. “But we’re
move their technology toward commercialization. This was the first also looking at how it could similarly be used in other applications,
time instructors awarded a prize during any of the Energy I-Corps such as for the U.S. Department of Defense, for detection of off-
cohorts. The prize money, provided by DOE's OTT, aimed to help gases from conventional munitions in a bunker, indicative of aging
continue the team's commercialization journey. munitions.”
"We were so excited,” Mara Schindelholz, principal member of She now has a chart of all the different possibilities for the sensor
technical staff at Sandia and the principal investigator for the team, use, but nDETECT is focusing in on a few first. “If we could find
said. “We were a woman-led team, and we demonstrated that one of those easier applications for adoption, that would help us to
women are equally capable of excelling at technology innovation and continue to mature the technology,” Schindelholz said.
commercialization."
She credits the growth of the project to the insight she gained from
nDETECT is a nitrogen dioxide sensor technology that is being Energy I-Corps.“Energy I-Corps really helped us better align our
developed at Sandia for real-time monitoring of pollutant gases. product development to our first applications of interest, to ensure, in
The sensors, composed of platinum interdigitated electrodes with the future, a rapid transition of our technology.” Schindelholz said.
a nanoporous absorbent layer, can be tuned to selectively absorb
gases of interest through judicious material selection and the In addition to continuing work with nDETECT, Schindelholz is on
electrical response directly correlated to gas concentration. The temporary assignment as a Small Business Innovation Research/
award helped the team build the first stand-alone prototypes, with Small Business Technology Transfer program director at the National
embedded electronics. Science Foundation, funding technology startups.
nDETECT now has two projects, one with the Kansas City National “I credit that to Energy I-Corps as well,” she said. “Although I have
Security Campus, and the other at Sandia, to further optimize the always had a passion for technology development, Energy I-Corps
design of their prototypes. The co-led Kansas City National Security provided me with the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to
Campus design is a greater fidelity sensor but requires more battery actively participate in the area of technology commercialization.”
power, while the Sandia prototype is a lower-cost, more-qualitative
alternative sensor solution. Schindelholz and the teams at Kansas
City National Security Campus and Sandia submitted provisional
patents for both types of sensors, in addition to receiving a patent for
the original sensor in February 2023.

Success Stories
RouteE
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
DOE: Vehicle Technologies Office
Cohort: 8
RouteE’s Map to Google and Beyond

When developing the RouteE technology, creator Jake Holden,
who works at NREL, was just trying to predict the amount of
energy a vehicle would use to get from point A to point B. He
never dreamed people around the world would end up using the
technology when they opened Google Maps.
From left, Clement Rames (entrepreneurial lead), Jacob Holden (principal
investigator), and Joshua Foss (industry mentor), accelerated the commercialization
“There’s a lot of it that doesn’t feel real,” Holden said. “The reach of “green routing” to co-optimize travel time and energy use bringing both economic
and the impact of this is unlike anything I could have pictured for it.” and environmental benefits. Photo by Harrison Dreeves, NREL
RouteE’s secret is in the accurate prediction of energy usage

Google reached out to Holden and NREL in late 2019 and early
for a variety of vehicle types, such as gasoline-powered cars,
2020 to discuss efforts for sustainable mapping.
hybrids, or electric vehicles. Holden and others at the lab have
now grown that capability so RouteE can optimize routes, using “It quickly became clear that RouteE was the right tool for the
less fuel in a reasonable amount of time. Now, Google Maps uses eco-friendly routes product they were trying to build,” he said.
it via the "green leaf," to recommend more eco-friendly routes for “The thing that hit me the hardest was the potential impact. They
users. estimated that simply defaulting Google Maps users to the less-
fuel-consuming route stood to reduce on-road greenhouse gas
Creation began in 2016–2017 while Holden and others worked on
emissions in the United States by 1%.”
the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy TRANSNET
project aiming to use smart phones to nudge travelers to make Google began working with the NREL team and the RouteE
more-efficient decisions. This could be reminding them to leave methodology and first released Eco-Friendly Routing in the
work 15 minutes early or 15 minutes later to avoid traffic. To make United States in October 2020. Since then, large e-commerce
that work, the team needed a way to model the energy outcomes, and transportation network company fleet operators have worked
and that is where the groundwork for RouteE came together. with NREL to determine potential energy savings in their fleets
through RouteE implementation.
As Holden tried to determine the best use of the technology, he
went through Energy I-Corps, which he says helped significantly. The plan is now to open-source the RouteE tool and methodology
so more organizations can take advantage of the potential energy
“The most important thing that Energy I-Corps did, and this
savings. While this approach may not maximize revenue, Holden
is the first thing I tell anyone when they ask,” Holden said, “is
says he is prioritizing maximum real-world impact and believes
that it made me a better researcher in thinking backwards from
this is the right path to doing so.
considering a good product market fit for technology I worked on.
Stop focusing on just tinkering with this software and focus on “It is a very tough path to go down to spin out a company, to go
what are the most pressing needs and how can we tailor RouteE out and fight for funding,” Holden said. “The risk was too high in
to help. You can make a much better case for funding if you can many ways [, personally]. It would have been a tough road to get
say I’ve talked to X number of people, and here is the demand. to the point of monetizing it. I’m happier with having taken the
This is the problem that needs to be solved in the world, and lower-risk option [of executing agreements with partners] with a
here’s the solution we’re proposing and the subsequent impact it higher likelihood that it gets out into the world.”
can have.”

Success Stories
Tereform
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
DOE: Bioenergy Technologies Office
Cohort: 13
Two Time’s Terrific for Tereform

Most Energy I-Corps participants go through the program once,
learn a great deal, and then continue to grow on their own. The
Tereform team got to do it twice.
“Energy I-Corps was the galvanizing factor for launching this

Kevin Sullivan (left), entrepreneurial lead, and Mikhail Konev, principal
company,” Kevin Sullivan, a researcher at the NREL and now investigator, are working toward the commercialization of a technology that breaks
Tereform’s CEO, said. “Energy I-Corps gave us an understanding down waste textiles and other hard-to-recycle plastics with oxygen. Photo from
Kevin Sullivan, NREL
of how a business could feasibly work. We conducted more than
80 stakeholder discovery interviews, through which we developed
our skills interviewing people and feeling comfortable asking the Konev and Sullivan first connected at NREL while Konev was
right questions.” working on biomass and plastic depolymerization and Sullivan
was studying how to use oxygen to break things down, such as
Tereform takes waste textiles, such as carpet and clothing chemical warfare agents and other toxic compounds. As they
otherwise destined for a landfill, and uses a chemical process to worked to use oxygen to break down biomass, they found it
break those textiles down into fundamental building blocks. applied very well to plastics.
“We can remake the kind of polymers and plastics they were “So, Mikhail and I developed this project around breaking down
in the beginning,” Mikhail Konev, former NREL researcher and hard-to-recycle plastics with oxygen, which led to a larger effort
now Tereform’s Chief Technology Officer, said. “You can only focusing on mixed plastics,” Sullivan said.
mechanically recycle a water bottle so many times because
plastics’ physical properties degrade. Our process of chemical Four years later, and with two rounds of Energy I-Corps under
recycling allows us to do it over and over again.” their belts, Tereform is an established company winning awards
and looking at hiring additional employees. Both Sullivan and
The team was originally in Energy I-Corps Cohort 13, and then Konev are excited for what comes next.
got to participate again in Cohort 15 when Tereform earned a
spot in West Gate, NREL’s new Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship “Our next product milestone is scaling up the amount of material
Program (LEEP). As a LEEP node, West Gate embeds innovators processed in a single run,” Konev said. “We’re also thinking about
at NREL and pairs them with National Laboratory scientists and future fundraising needs and bringing on more employees to help
capabilities over a period of 2 years. us establish an independent lab once Tereform completes the
West Gate program.”
After its second time in Energy I-Corps, Tereform won the H&M
Foundation’s 2023 Global Change Award and is currently in
discussions with several potential brand partners.
“We’re hoping to co-develop some intellectual property and

other sourcing materials around,” Konev said. “Many brands are
interested in being able to fully circularize a garment, whether it’s
with scrap materials during the production process or through a
take-back program for unsellable garments.”

By the Numbers
To support participation in an Energy I-Corps Training Cohort, teams are awarded funding from DOE program offices, NNSA, their
National Lab, or industry partners. After the program concludes, teams often seek additional funding for continued commercialization
activities. Post-program funding may take many forms, including Department of Energy funding, grants, laboratory research funding,
cooperative research awards, industry support, private capital, etc. The information shown below highlights the initial funding
investments as well as the post-program funding that teams have reported.
INVESTMENT TOTAL POST-PROGRAM FUNDING

$16,265,000 $177,063,137
Funding Snapshot
Teams Investment Post-Program
Funded Funding
Technology Office Funded 190.5 $14,452,500 $163,164,278
Lab Funded 13.5 $987,500 $10,754,998
Pilot 10 $750,000 $2,897,000
Privately Funded 1 $75,000 $246,861
Grand Total 215 $16,265,000 $177,063,137
Technology Office Funding Detailed Breakdown

DOE Funding Teams Investment Post-Program
Office Funded Funding
AMO* 28.5 $2,147,500 $30,699,739
AMMTO 3.33 $266,667 $0
BETO 23 $1,740,000 $6,281,857
BTO 13 $985,000 $3,750,000
CESER 0.5 $40,000 $0
EM 2 $150,000 $7,572,500
FECM 6.5 $502,500 $2,325,000
GTO 4.5 $342,500 $4,020,000
HFTO 4 $302,500 $1,786,857
NAWI 2 $150,000 $4,600,000
NE 16.83 $1,269,167 $13,288,000
NNSA 15 $1,150,000 $8,426,002
OE 11 $832,500 $10,630,000
OS 4 $305,000 $6,630,000
OTT 4 $300,000 $2,985,000
SETO 5.83 $449,167 $38,243,000
VTO 20.5 $1,542,500 $7,160,323
WETO 14 $1,072,500 $4,670,000
WPTO 8 $605,000 $6,746,000
WWPTO 4 $300,000 $3,350,000
Total 190.5 $14,452,500 $163,164,278
*In 2023, the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) restructured to the the Industrial Efficiency &
Decarbonization Office (IEDO) and the Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)

By the Numbers
TEAMS FUNDED STAKEHOLDER DISCOVERY INTERVIEWS

215 15,499
By Laboratory
Lab Teams Post-Program Funding Discovery
Funded Received Interviews
ANL 23 $14,862,224 1718
FNAL 3 $1,550,000 182
INL 33 $26,359,088 2396
LANL 5 $1,515,000 377
LBNL 16 $24,522,500 1171
LLNL 9 $16,430,500 484
NETL 3 $725,000 227
NREL 52 $59,625,859 3875
ORNL 12 $8,287,714 921
PNNL 26 $11,992,250 1808
SLAC 2 $345,000 83
SNL 31 $10,848,002 2207
Total 215 $177,063,137 15,449
By Cohort
Lab Teams Post-Program Funding Discovery
Funded Received Interviews
0 3 N/A 225
1 14 $3,851,000 767
2 14 $28,846,222 815
3 8 $4,150,000 475
4 15 $43,215,000 937
5 12 $1,728,000 916
6 8 $14,634,361 606
7 8 $15,170,714 669
8 10 $6,095,000 776
9 12 $9,720,000 910
10 10 $8,925,500 763
11 17 $15,201,088 1148
12 18 $8,395,250 1361
13 16 $7,063,002 1251
14 16 $7,360,000 1052
15 10 $1,294,000 837
16 13 $1,414,000 1104
17 11 N/A* 837
Total 215 $177,063,137 15,449
*Cohort completed during the writing of this report, so no post-program funding to report as of yet.

Participation by Technology Program Offices
Energy I-Corps teams are funded by individual technology program offices within DOE. Labs also have the opportunity to fund teams
or find industry partners to fund teams. Information provided on the following pages incorporates reporting from the first cohort pilot
through Cohort 17, ending in November 2023.
Teams can be co-funded by multiple program offices. Co-funded teams' interview numbers are divided by the number of funding
program offices.
Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO)
Team Lab Cohort Discovery

Interviews
Micro Miners (.5) LLNL 2 30
TOTAL TEAMS INVESTMENT
FUNDED TOTAL
NanoHeatBlock ANL 2 83
Saline Solutions LLNL 2 50 28.5 $2,147,500
Fermians FNAL 3 48
E-RECOV INL 4 57
Re-Light INL 5 75
Electroplate (.5) INL 5 28 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
BaSiC NREL 5 80
COMBA
LaserSense (Iris Light Technologies
LBNL
ANL
7
7
107
79
$30,699,739 2,097
FLO.materials LBNL 7 78
HyMag (.5) ANL 8 39
CAN-Coatings ANL 8 72
Shakti Power Systems ANL 9 71
C-CHiRP ANL 10 78
E-Ionsorb LLNL 10 61
EMEE INL 11 79
ARME PNNL 11 77
Sustainability Innovators INL 11 74
RE-Metal INL 11 76
EC-Leach INL 12 71
RECOVER (.5) PNNL 12 39
WESAP PNNL 12 93
CO2 converters (.5) ANL 12 39
Wolfram Plating SNL 13 68
Galileo ANL 13 80
Phase Changers NREL 14 78
FrozEn PNNL 14 79
CAML SNL 14 55
Regenerable Catalysts SNL 15 65
Mixed Plastic Recycling ORNL 15 88
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing TOTAL TEAMS INVESTMENT

Technologies Office (AMMTO) FUNDED TOTAL
Discovery
3.33 $266,667
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Diamond SemiConductors SNL 16 77
Recyclobot ANL 16 103
Litholution INL 17 76 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
SSAM (.33) PNNL 17 25
$0 281

Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)

Interviews
High-Moisture Pelleting Process
INL 2 86
FUNDED TOTAL
FiberSAS ANL 3 76
WasteNot ANL 3 70 23 $1,740,000
FUSS LANL 4 71
Bio-Blend aka OptiBlend INL 4 75
Nitrilica NREL 5 77
Glycoplastics NREL 5 77 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
CuB Fuels NREL 5 98
Electro-Active (.5)
Fermeley
ORNL
LBNL
7
8
40
81
$6,281,857 1,795
EcoPod LBNL 8 77
Embodied Carbon NREL 9 78
Grab-X ANL 9 83
Cycle NREL 10 86
Scum Ranchers SNL 10 78
BETTER NREL 11 73
UltraSep LANL 12 76
Bio-NIPU (.5) NREL 12 39
Biopack ML LANL 12 76
Revamp NREL 13 81
Bioreactor LLNL 14 60
O2SAF PNNL 15 77
Carbon Upcycled Bioproducts for SNL 16 82
Environmental Sustainability (CUBES)
3HP PNNL 16 78
Building Technologies Office (BTO)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
VOLTTRON
PNNL 2 33 FUNDED TOTAL
MAI for Buildings
13
ORNL 3 74
SwitchGlaze (.5) NREL 3 27 $985,000
Thermoelectric Dryer ORNL 4 45
Beyond Fault Detection NREL 5 76
GreenBlox NREL 6 74
POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
Amber LEDs NREL 9 77 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
ThermaStor LBNL 9 78
EB Treement FNAL 11 56 $3,750,000 885
Bio-NIPU (.5) NREL 12 39
FreeSpace NREL 12 77
UBEM LBNL 12 77
Catch It NREL 16 77
Retrofit Ready Decarb LBNL 17 75

Cybersecurity Energy Security and Emergency

Response (CESER)
Team Lab Cohort Discovery TOTAL TEAMS INVESTMENT
Interviews FUNDED TOTAL
FireMap (.5) SNL 16 75
0.5 $40,000
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$0 75
Office of Environmental Management (EM)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Gamma Reality, Inc. (GRI) LBNL 6 77
FUNDED TOTAL
Purebeam FNAL 7 78
2 $150,000
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$7,572,500 155
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO)

Interviews
Polymer Membranes SNL 2 41
FUNDED TOTAL
CryoH2 LLNL 4 56 4 $302,500
Electro-Active (.5) ORNL 7 40
High Flying Hydrides NREL 13 78
GreenHEART (.5) NREL 17 38
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$1,786,857 253

Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM)

Interviews
MECS LLNL 4 64
FUNDED TOTAL
CO2BOL-NG PNNL 5 75
Memzyme SNL 10 81 6.5 $502,500
CO2 converters (.5) ANL 12 39
ALFa-LDS for Methane LANL 15 72
Pipeline Sensors NETL 15 78
Lignocrete NREL 17 76 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$2,325,000 485
Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Micro Miners (.5) LLNL 2 30
FUNDED TOTAL
TOUGH LBNL 2 54
GeoCAES NREL 4 51 4.5 $342,500
Sandia Technology SNL 4 40
Systems
DUAL-SOURCE HEAT ORNL 16 76
PUMP
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$4,020,000 251
National Alliance for Water Innovation – LBNL (NAWI)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort Interviews
WaterDAMS NREL 11 82
FUNDED TOTAL
Water-TAP3 NREL 11 72
2 $150,000
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$4,600,000 154

Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)

Interviews
QUAKE INL 2 35 FUNDED TOTAL
Monolith
Dry Cask Vital Signs
SNL
INL
3
4
37
51
16.83 $1,269,167
Change Detection Systems INL 4 71
EMRALD INL 5 76
Electroplate (.5) INL 5 28
AMAFT INL 5 76 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
4C's INL 6 38
ELINA
HOT
INL
INL
6
7
102
75
$13,288,000 1,187
AxiVis INL 7 90
M2LD INL 8 116
ROTORO, EH? INL 9 77
Thermal Sound On INL 10 73
Mesofluidics PNNL 13 63
Feedforward K9 INL 14 60
MIA ORNL 17 94
SSAM (.33) PNNL 17 25
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Enduring Advantage SNL 10 75
FUNDED TOTAL
UXI SNL 10 81
HECATE SNL 11 81 15 $1,150,000
CAP Fastener SNL 11 60
MAD3 SNL 12 74
EPDR SNL 12 71
ThermaSET SNL 13 103 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
Fractured SNL 13 76 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
Disease Precognition
nDETECT
LANL
SNL
14
14
82
75
$8,426,002 1,157
Tough Adhesive ORNL 15 74
Ridged Electrodes SNL 16 77
Electro 3D SNL 16 76
MagTag SNL 17 75
PhotoSil LLNL 17 77
Office of Electricity (OE)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort Interviews
DCAT PNNL 6 75 FUNDED TOTAL
11
Glass paper INL 8 75
EnergyBlox SLAC 8 27 $832,500
EcoBlock LBNL 9 75
DER-CAM LBNL 9 78
TRAST PNNL 11 78
THERMS (.5) SNL 12 34 DISCOVERY
POST-PROGRAM
C3D INL 13 87 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
MASTERRI INL 14 55
GRIP SLAC 14 56 $10,630,000 795
FireMap (.5) SNL 16 75
GridSense SNL 17 80

Office of Science (SC)

Interviews
Superchips LBNL 11 72
FUNDED TOTAL
INN-Design NREL 12 69
RoboDT ANL 14 76 4 $305,000
Efficient Isotopes PNNL 15 76
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$6,630,000 293
Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Solguard NREL 2 51 FUNDED TOTAL
5.83
Hydroscanner LLNL 3 44
HALO NREL 4 83 $449,167
THERMS (.5) SNL 12 34
Avian-Solar ANL 15 123
NIO NREL 16 79
SSAM (.33) PNNL 17 25 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$38,243,000 439
Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Smart Charge Adapter ANL 2 71
FUNDED TOTAL
CellSage INL 4 44
Lubricant Engineers PNNL 4 75 20.5 $1,542,500
MicroWatts NREL 5 75
FAST PNNL 6 91
Beyond Lithium-Ion Batteries ANL 7 82
routeE NREL 8 80
BOND-NORTHWEST PNNL 8 93 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
1,516
Resilicoat ANL 9 82
HeadCount NREL 10 74 $7,160,323
SWaP Electronics SNL 11 47
RECOVER (.5) PNNL 12 39
e-mission NREL 12 78
Athena NREL 13 82
Ducted Fuel Injection: Cost-Effective SNL 13 76
Eco-friendly Diesel (DFI)
EnStore for BTMS NREL 13 88
Lithium Battery INL 13 75
Real-Twin ORNL 14 78
ShAPE recycling PNNL 14 63
ZAV SNL 14 48
Track Analytics SNL 16 75

Wind and Water Power Technologies Office (WWPTO)

Interviews
DLR, aka GLASS INL 3 72 FUNDED TOTAL
4
Autonomous Concrete Printing NREL 4 79
RF Tag PNNL 4 75 $300,000
WindSOCK NREL 5 75
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$3,350,000 301
Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO)

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
IHESS2020 INL 11 72 FUNDED TOTAL
SLIC
IrrigationViz
PNNL
PNNL
11
12
61
96 8 $605,000
Glides ORNL 13 75
Lab-on-a-fish PNNL 13 52
Under the C NREL 14 71
Hydrogen Ships SNL 14 40 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
SeaDragon NREL 17 57 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$6,746,000 524
Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO)

Interviews
HyMag (.5) ANL 8 39 FUNDED TOTAL
14
SpiderFloat NREL 8 77
MADe3D NREL 9 78 $1,072,500
SAND INL 9 77
ThermalTracker-3D PNNL 9 56
HOPP NREL 11 44
OpenOA NREL 11 44 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
RBLO NREL 12 57 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
TAP
WindEZ
NREL
NREL
12
14
76
76
$4,670,000 998
HighWind NREL 15 107
NoVo Rotor NREL 16 79
Distributed Wind Toolkit NREL 16 75
Hercules NREL 17 75
GreenHEART (.5) NREL 17 38

Lab-Funded Teams

Interviews
CI-ReClad ORNL 1 75
FUNDED TOTAL
Dynamic Aperture ANL 1 23
EcoSnap NREL 1 45 13.5 $987,500
HYDRA PNNL 1 40
SubLambda PNNL 1 37
Tunation ORNL 1 86
WISDEM NREL 1 80 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
BioAlchemy LBNL 2 51 FUNDING INTERVIEWS
804
Biolyst Renewables NREL 2 81
Evodia LBNL 2 45 $10,754,998
Resin Wafer Deionization ANL 2 75
(RWEDI Solutions)
SwitchGlaze (.5) NREL 3 27
OleoSponge ANL 6 62
Apex Imaging NREL 15 77
Office of Technology Transitions

Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
UTS- Ultrasonic
Technology Solutions ORNL 10 76 FUNDED TOTAL
Microwave Assisted
Catalysis (MAC) NETL 12 69 4 $300,000
memQ ANL 13 87
Hyper Team NETL 13 80
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$2,985,000 312

Pilot Funded

Interviews
ARAI INL 1 96
FUNDED TOTAL
C-Best LLNL 1 13
Co-Culture Green PNNL 1 34 10 $750,000
Ring Burner LBNL 1 71
SonicLQ ANL 1 11
STARS PNNL 1 78
Switchable Polarity INL 1 78 POST-PROGRAM DISCOVERY
Solvents
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
Frequency Sensing Load ANL 0 75
Controller
My Green Car LBNL 0 75
$2,897,000 606
TwistAct SNL 0 75
Privately Funded
Discovery
Team Lab Cohort
Interviews
Opt-grid NREL 6 87
FUNDED TOTAL
1 $75,000
FUNDING INTERVIEWS
$246,861 87

Post-Program Funding
Team post-program funding reported through October 2023.
Team Name Post-Program Funding Received Funded through Energy I-Corps by:
4C's $1,500,000 NE
AMAFT $103,000 NE
Apex Imaging $150,000 NREL
ARAI $161,000 Pilot
ARME $225,000 AMO
Athena $375,000 VTO
Avian-Solar $744,000 SETO
Biolyst Renewables $6,449,998 NREL
Bioreactor $100,000 BETO
BOND-NORTHWEST $40,000 VTO
C3D $570,000 OE
CAN-Coatings $300,000 AMO
Change Detection Systems $775,000 NE
CO2 converters $250,000 AMO, FECM
CO2BOL-NG $520,000 FECM
COMBA $3,600,000 AMO
CuB Fuels $360,000 BETO
DCAT $10,000 OE
DFI $2,072,000 VTO
Dual-Source Heat Pump $1,270,000 GTO
Dynamic Line Rating $1,850,000 WWPTO (wind)
EcoBlock $8,000,000 OE
EcoSnap $350,000 NREL
E-Ionsorb $1,500,500 AMO
Electro-Active $3,573,714 BETO, HFTO
ELINA $6,505,000 NE
e-mission $505,000 VTO
EMRALD $745,000 NE
Enduring Advantage $435,000 NNSA
EPDR $50,000 NNSA
E-RECOV $280,000 AMO
Fermeley $500,000 BETO
FLO.materials $4,800,000 AMO
Fractured $16,000 NNSA
FrozEn $300,000 AMO
Galileo $250,000 AMO
Gamma Reality, Inc. (GRI) $6,022,500 EM
GeoCAES $300,000 GTO

Team Post-Program Funding (continued)
Glass Paper $1,560,000 OE
GRIP $345,000 OE
HALO $37,080,000 SETO
High-Moisture Pelleting Process $1,400,000 BETO
HOT $840,000 NE
Hyper Team $725,000 OTT
IHESS2020 $4,000,000 WPTO
LaserSense $807,000 AMO
MAD3 $295,000 NNSA
MADe3D $800,000 WETO
MASTERRI $20,000 OE
MECS $1,680,000 FECM
memQ $970,000 OTT
Micro Miners $4,900,000 AMO, GTO
Mixed Plastic Recycling $400,000 AMO
NanoHeatBlock $1,782,026 AMO
nDETECT $565,000 NNSA
NIO $144,000 SETO
OleoSponge $350,000 ANL
OpenOA $250,000 WETO
Opt-Grid $246,861 IP Group (private)
Purebeam $1,550,000 EM
QUAKE $2,820,000 NE
RECOVER $1,960,250 AMO, VTO
RE-Metal $1,230,000 AMO
Resin Wafer Deionization $1,701,000 ANL
Revamp $620,000 BETO
RF Tag $1,500,000 WWPTO (water)
RoboDT $6,030,000 OS
RouteE $1,795,000 VTO
Saline Solutions $8,250,000 AMO
SLIC $2,746,000 WPTO
Smart Charge Adapter $1,393,198 VTO
Solguard $150,000 SETO
SonicLQ $285,000 Pilot
SpiderFloat $1,900,000 WETO
STARS $2,001,000 Pilot
Superchips $600,000 OS

Team Post-Program Funding (continued)
Sustainability Innovators $1,550,088 AMO
Switchable Polarity Solvents $450,000 Pilot
SwitchGlaze $2,300,000 BTO, NREL
TAP $800,000 WETO
ThermalTracker-3D $920,000 WETO
ThermaSET $1,365,002 NNSA
Thermoelectric Dryer $1,600,000 BTO
THERMS $250,000 SETO, OE
Tunation $154,000 ORNL
UBEM $1,000,000 BTO
UltraSep $1,515,000 BETO
UTS-Ultrasonic Technology Solutions $1,290,000 OTT
UXI $5,700,000 NNSA
WaterDAMS $600,000 NAWI
Water-TAP3 $4,000,000 NAWI
WESAP $1,770,000 AMO
WISDEM $450,000 NREL
Wolfram Plating $100,000 AMO
Total $177,063,137
17 cohorts* completed as of Innovations have spanned

Fall 2023 19 DOE program areas
including Teams have conducted
215 teams from 12 National Labs 15,500

stakeholder discovery interviews with companies
like: EPRI, Shell, Ford, World Bank, Breakthrough
215 Energy, John Deere, Siemens Gamesa, Chevron, Eaton,

Samsung, Lowes, Johns Manville, LEGO, U.S. Army,
industry mentors and Trane, Tesla, GM, Dow Chemical, 3M, Whirlpool, GE,
instructors involved Home Depot, and Amazon
*Plus Pilot program cohort

Energy I-Corps Topic 2 Teaching Team
The Teaching Team brings the Energy I-Corps Training Cohort curriculum to life. Energy I-Corps instructors are truly the backbone of
the program and provide the time, energy, and intensity needed to successfully shepherd 12–18 teams through each cohort. Instructors
bring critical industry expertise to the program and introduce the language of innovation and commercialization to the participating
teams. By leveraging deep technical backgrounds and advanced business experience, instructors bring their industry knowledge to
each session—sharing lessons learned while incorporating program elements, professional development, and commercialization
pathways. Instructors leverage their business and startup experience to the benefit of the Energy I-Corps teams through instruction,
one-on-one advisory sessions, presentation coaching, stakeholder discovery review, team building, and network expansion.
Steve Albers Danielle France Max Green

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Team Liaison, Innovation and Founder and
Officer, Living Ink Technologies Entrepreneurship Center, NREL Managing Member,
Ratio Flux
Rebecca Kauffman Deepa Lounsbury Nakia Melecio

Principal, Sun Raven Managing Director, LabStart Senior Research Faculty,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Jean Redfield Tom Teynor

CFO and Co-Founder, CEO, Bell Plumbing and Heating
JM Redfield LLC

Program Team
The Program Team operates behind the scenes, ensuring the seamless execution of Energy I-Corps’ mission to educate and empower
National Lab researchers. These dedicated administrators play a pivotal role in shaping the program’s success, providing invaluable
support to participating teams, instructors, National Lab tech transfer offices, and DOE program offices. Leveraging their expertise in
logistics, coordination, and execution, the Energy I-Corps Program Team contributes to the transformative journey of researchers as
they navigate the realms of innovation and commercialization.
Carolina Villacis Matt O’Brien Katherine Harsanyi

Program Manager for full Energy Program Manager for full Energy I-Corps Program Advisor for full Energy I-Corps
I-Corps Portfolio, OTT Portfolio, Contractor to OTT Portfolio, OTT
Shelly Curtiss Katie Woslager

Program Manager for Topic 2: Training Program Manager for Topic 2: Training
Cohorts, NREL Cohorts, NREL

Technology Commercialization Internship Program
Another OTT program that integrates the Energy I-Corps curriculum is the Technology Commercialization Internship Program (TCIP).
TCIP welcomed its third cohort of students in Summer 2023. The program was launched in 2021 and supports OTT’s mission by
training the next generation of entrepreneurs while simultaneously recruiting talent for DOE and the National Laboratories to advance
commercialization within the United States.
TCIP is a unique paid opportunity for undergraduate STEM and business students to experience DOE’s world-class National Laboratory
system, boost their entrepreneurial thinking, and explore energy technology markets. Interns engage with National Laboratory mentors
and learn about technologies at their partnered labs. Parallel to working with the National Laboratories, students also participate in
intensive commercialization training through an asynchronous Energy I-Corps curriculum. Instructors provide interns with lectures,
resources, and online workshops to tie lab work to the broader I-Corps framework. By providing interns access to the best-in-class
Energy I-Corps program, they enhance their education and training in entrepreneurship and energy technology-related fields while
increasing future marketability in these disciplines.
Outcomes from the first three years of TCIP include internship extensions, full-time offers from the National Lab, license leads
and signed research agreements from the outstanding work of the interns. The 2023 program welcomed 15 students from various
backgrounds, universities, geographical locations, and majors across the United States (Figure 2). 33% of the interns represented
disadvantaged communities.* Accepted interns were paired with mentors and projects from eight DOE National Laboratories.
Figure 2: TCIP’s third cohort of undergraduate student interns.
*As according to Justice40 guidelines and metrics.

Technology Commercialization Internship Program
All interns, mentors, laboratory staff and leadership, and OTT staff and leadership were invited to attend an end-of-summer event. Each
year, the event is hosted by one of the program’s participating laboratories. The 2023 event was held at Thomas Jefferson National
Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia. The interns were able to tour the facility, hear from lab and OTT staff, and present their
final deliverables, including competing in two pitch competitions: individual pitch presentations and group presentations.
The top three winners for individual presentations included:
• 1st Place: Zoryah Gray for the • 2nd Place: Johnathan Russell • 3rd Place: Radeha Haque for the
project “Market analysis and customer for the project “Feasibility of wind project “Commercial and Industrial
discovery for upcycling of single-use interconnection standard platform” at Customer Discovery for Edge-Connect
plastic waste” at Argonne National Sandia National Laboratories Hermetic Headers and Connectors” at
Laboratory Sandia National Laboratories.
The first-place winner and runner-up for group presentations included:
• 1st Place: Team members Antonia • Runner-Up: Team members Nathan

Tahia Ginsberg-Klemmt, Arunabh Mitchell, Obehi Ehigie, and Meghana
Sarmah, and Alex Gutierrez Diaz for Karthic for the project “Aeromine.”
the project “GISMO Power”
Intern Projects and Participating Labs
• Market analysis and customer discovery for upcycling of single-use plastic waste
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Patent Portfolio Project
• Mechanized Exfoliator and Automatic 2D Materials Transfer and Layering System
• Open-source embedded artificial intelligence at the edge
• Market Analysis and Partner Identification for National Security Technologies
• Commercial and Industrial Customer Discovery for Edge-Connect Hermetic Headers

and Connectors
• Commercial and Industrial Customer Discovery on New Small, Low-Cost, Toxic Gas
Sensor Platform
• Community-Engaged Tech Transfer
• Energy, Equity, and Environmental Justice Clean-Energy
• Hydropower Landscape Analysis
• Industry Production Partnerships for Defense System
• Targeted Antibody Therapeutics
• Transportation Sealing Monitor
• Fine Wire Non-Destructive Evaluation

Thank You!
Thank you to the DOE, program offices,

laboratories, instructors, and all who have
made Energy I-Corps possible.

Acronyms
AMO Advanced Manufacturing Office OE Office of Electricity
AMMTO Advanced Materials and Manufacturing ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Technologies Office
OTT Office of Technology Transitions
ANL Argonne National Laboratory
PNNL Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
BETO Bioenergy Technologies Office
SC Office of Science
BTO Building Technologies Office
SETO Solar Energy Technologies Office
DOE U.S. Department of Energy
SLAC SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
EM Office of Environmental Management
SNL Sandia National Laboratories
FECM Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
TCIP Technology Commercialization Internship
FNAL Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Program
GTO Geothermal Technologies Office VTO Vehicle Technologies Office
HFTO Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office WETO Wind Energy Technologies Office
IEDO Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization Office WPTO Water Power Technologies Office
INL Idaho National Laboratory WWPTO Wind & Water Power Technologies Office
LANL Los Alamos National Laboratory
LBNL Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
NE Office of Nuclear Energy
NNSA National Nuclear Security Administration
NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
NSF National Science Foundation

Prepared by NREL.
NREL is a National Laboratory of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,
operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
Uncredited photos courtesy of Kira Vos and Cookie Captures
DOE/GO-102024-6123 • Published January 2024

Energy Report

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Energy Report

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Energy Report

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Energy I-Corps

Energy I-Corps trains National Lab researchers in evaluating industry needs

An initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Technology Transitions

Energy I-Corps delivers intensive workforce development training

Dr. Vanessa Z. Chan

Chief Commercialization Officer, U.S. Department of Energy

2 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

Quick Stats................................................................................... 9 nDETECT................................................................................25

Team Profiles............................................................................. 10 RouteE....................................................................................26

Avian Solar ............................................................................11 Tereform..................................................................................27

IrrigationViz............................................................................14 Participation by Technology Program Offices................. 30

MAC.........................................................................................15 Post-Program Funding........................................................... 39

Mixed Plastics Upcycling......................................................16

UBEM......................................................................................20 Thank You!.................................................................................. 46

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 3

About Energy I-Corps

New in FY23! New in FY23!

Topic 1: Pipeline Topic 2: Training

Figure 1: Energy I-Corps Program Structure

4 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 5

• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: “Solid State

6 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

What is Energy I-Corps? Who can participate?

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 7

To date, teams have participated from:

8 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

17 COHORTS of ENERGY I-CORPS

25.5 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 23 Argonne National Laboratory

15,500 Stakeholder Discovery Interviews 78 Licenses Executed

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 9

10 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

Bridging Artificial Intelligence and

Their tool, they discovered, addressed diverse needs beyond

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 11

Economics Versus Technology

12 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

Disrupting the Wind Energy Industry

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 13

However, trust for and adoption of IrrigationViz remained

14 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

A Deep Dive Into Oil Drilling and

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 15

Mixed Plastics Upcycling

Revolutionizing Plastic Recycling With

*In 2023, the Advanced Manufacturing Office restructured to the Industrial

16 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

From Athletics to Autos: Vitrimer

*In 2023, the Advanced Manufacturing Office restructured to the Industrial

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 17

Tackling Quantum Computing Control

demands at the speed users expect. Quantum computers are

18 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

Tough Adhesive Team

For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov 19

CityBES Finds Collaboration Toward

20 For more information, visit: energyicorps.energy.gov

Advancing Particle Separation in