Commercial ambitions in chemical research awarded

Academic education doesn’t equip scientist with entrepreneurial skills and a commercial network needed to bring an innovation to the market successfully. So to make their impact-dream come through, for the next two years Yari and Rik will meet with their fellow scientist in this program 4 days a month to learn from one another and to receive expertise and guidance from experts in the field of valorization. “The fact that I am selected is not only a recognition for the relevance of my research but also a perfect opportunity to develop new skills”, states Yari.  

Yari is currently finalizing his research into responsive coatings at the Stimuli-responsive functional materials and devices group under the supervision of Albert Schenning. These coatings have a potential sustainability impact as indicators that form a replacement for old-fashioned expiration dates.
The deterioration of consumables, such as food and pharmaceuticals, is highly dependent on exposure conditions. Approximately 30% of our food is wasted, causing large economic losses and an avoidable environmental burden. Low-cost indicators are useful to track perishable consumables during their respective lifetime. These indicators provide an optical response to accurately represent the expiration process based on temperature exposure. Our solution presents a tunable ink for a tailored indicator response, embedded in the packaging as an alternative for static expiration dates. This offers a facile readout of the expiration status, ultimately resulting in less waste and a more sustainable consumption.

Rik van Gorp researcher in the team of Antoni Forner Cuenca who specialized in development of hydrogen based fuel cells for heavy-duty transportation purposes, has also an innovation that he aims to bring to market in the near future. In the laboratory, they developed a new coating procedure for porous electrodes that allows a higher power density in fuel cells and which makes it a cheaper green energy option.  “My ambition is to extend the current technology from lab scale to a prototype of 20x20cm and perform durability tests before the 2 year period is up. If I succeed a start-up company named Heratec will be set-up by the end of this period. Ultimately, we would like to completely design porous electrodes with transformative performance improvements from the bottom-up.”, states Rik.

Developing green technologies that leverage efficient interconversion of electrical and chemical energy is essential to decarbonize the electric grid, power the heavy-duty transportation fleet, and to enable sustainable chemical manufacturing. At the core of these electrochemical devices, porous electrodes play an integral role as their design governs the performance, durability and consequently the cost of next-generation electrochemical systems. With our innovative technology, we solve the fundamental challenge of multiphase transport within gas diffusion electrodes by leveraging revolutionary porous electrode design and localized functionalization methods. Our solution enables transformative performance improvements and cost reductions in hydrogen technologies, energy storage, and electrofuels.

At TU/e researchers that have the ambition to set up a start-up company are also facilitated by the Gate. Business developers from both TU/e and Brainport Development offer independent advice to starting entrepreneurs. They provide information and guidance on workspaces, financing, training and coaching.