Ohio State Startups - Advanced Materials

Description: Agile Ultrasonics is focused on enabling meaningful improvements in advanced materials applications – displacing existing composite manufacturing processes. Composite manufacturing, which is considered to be the industry standard, is challenged by air pockets that are formed as the composite material is deposited. These air pockets create weakness, forcing critical components in armor, aerospace and automotive to be overbuilt to compensate – which, in turn, makes them heavier and more expensive than necessary. Agile Ultrasonics eliminates 99.9% of all air pockets during the layup process.

Description:  ALC Innovations offers a plant-derived, all-natural cleaner that is an alternative to harsh cleaning chemicals. The product contains no harmful dyes, no harsh chemicals, and no odor or taste, which makes it ideal to use around food. The cleaner is able to cut through fatty lipid substances, such as lipstick, and can be used on several surface types, such as wood, glass and countertops. In addition to restaurants and retail establishments, ALC Innovations plans to market the product to schools, hospitals and eventually households.

Description:  Applied Impulse, Inc. (Aii) is deploying a new solid-state joining method proven to join a broad range of dissimilar alloys without use of adhesive materials such as glue or solder. Aii’s value proposition is to enable industries to design new and “lightweight” existing products and improve performance by joining dissimilar materials such as steel to aluminum, stainless steel to nitinol and many other novel combinations.

Description:  EnergyEne produces an alternative material for high-performance latex products in the medical and consumer healthcare industry as well as consumer products. This natural rubber material, made from the guayule plant, is allergy-safe and has superior physical properties compared to synthetic rubber. In addition, a byproduct of this process is an energy-rich residual biomass that can be used in biofuel hydrocarbon production. The company has produced a radiation attenuation medical glove and is developing prototypes for lineman’s gloves, surgeon’s gloves, condoms and exam gloves.

Description: GonioTech LLC is a small business focused on novel materials and their applications. Using novel materials with unique properties, GonioTech is challenging the fundamental paradigm of semiconductor-based electronic devices that may allow operation at much higher frequencies.

Description:  HyperDamping Inc. is commercializing vibration, shock and noise-damping technology that enables better performance and innovative design. Vibrations and shocks cause noise and damage to electronics, vehicles, aircraft, buildings, industrial equipment and other everyday products. Existing solutions are limited in how much damping can be achieved due to weight load, available space, tolerance and cost. HyperDamping’s unique material designs create effective and lightweight dampers from any elastic material and provide significant cost savings compared to current approaches.

Description:  Conventional carbon materials used in battery and fuel cell applications are low-cost, but generally have a single function: electrical conductivity. pH Matter has developed a scalable approach for producing carbon with ideal properties for electro-chemical applications, with multiple functionalities and tuned structure. While this approach is more expensive than conventional carbon black or graphite in initial acquisition, the materials reduce overall cell costs by increasing durability and power density.

Description: Viamer Biosciences provides highly advanced resins for biomedical applications such as drug delivery, 3D manufacturing and medical devices. The deployment of true 3D fabrication methods in the biomedical implant space has lagged due to a lack of medically acceptable resorbable resins. Polypropylene fumarate (PPF) is a resorbable polymer that can be printed using photocrosslinking 3D printing and has broad biomedical applications. The company facilitates the production of PPF with chemical and mechanical properties that are appropriate for high levels of production under cGMP conditions. Clinical applications include orthopedic, trauma, soft tissue, mesh, drug delivery, vascular and tissue engineering.

Description:  ZeoVation is an applied materials company that has developed a cost-effective method for manufacturing nanozeolites and hierarchical zeolites to improve the quality, performance and effectiveness of a wide variety of products for drying, cleaning and purification. ZeoVation has developed a controlled-release, anti-microbial particle with at least a 100-fold higher antimicrobial potency over current zeolite-based antimicrobials and a factor of 1,000 over silver colloids. The particles can be easily incorporated into any product formulation with a limited footprint due to their small size. Potential applications include surface coatings, paints, wound care, polymers, resins, textiles and consumer products.