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St. Mary’s College and SolarCube LLC Research Partnership Wins Award for Innovation

Solar energy startup company SolarCube LLC has won a $100,000 technology product development grant through the Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program (MIPS). The funding will directly support the research and development work led by Troy Townsend, assistant professor of chemistry at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM), who is the principle inventor for technology that uses nanomaterials to allow photovoltaic solar modules to be manufactured using an affordable, inkjet-like printing process.

MIPS, a program of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, supports research projects at University System of Maryland universities (plus Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College), to help Maryland companies develop technology-based products. MIPS funds are matched by participating companies to pay for the university research.

Solar Cube’s MIPS project is also supported by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Innovative Technology Fund, a partnership between DNR, the University of Maryland and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with the goal of accelerating Chesapeake Bay restoration through the development of new technologies. DNR provided funding to MIPS for the project.

Townsend developed the base technology at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in 2014 and has proven the process with a working nanocrystal prototype. In June 2018, SolarCube LLC and the Naval Research Laboratory signed the license agreement for the lab’s patented “spray deposition method for inorganic nanocrystal solar cells” technology. TechLink, the Department of Defense’s national partnership intermediary, assisted SolarCube with development of the required commercialization plan and patent license application.

“Of all the renewable energy options, solar is the only one with enough potential to exceed even our future global power demand,” Townsend said. “Solar power is a really nice financial benefit for homeowners. But not for everyone else. In order to make it more accessible, we need to drive the price way down and seamlessly integrate it into our everyday life.”

Townsend’s work on printed electronics involves undergraduate research at St. Mary’s College. Student Bradley Moore ’20, who works on printing the nanocrystal inks said, “If we do the layers correctly, it will make a solar panel that would be 40 times thinner than a human hair.” Moore injects inks made of semiconducting and metallic nanocrystals into cartridges to print out 2D patterns onto arbitrary substrates to build electronics.

Moore works with fellow student Megan Waters ’20, who is synthesizing the inks using air-free conditions. Waters, who has been synthesizing silver nanowires said, “Trying to figure out just the right concentrations and times of injection were definitely the most challenging and interesting parts of the synthesis.”

Townsend said, “Undergraduate research is our pride and joy here at St. Mary’s College. These projects would not be possible without our talented students. In the meantime, they are working on graduate level projects and publishing their work in journals and presenting at national conferences.” Townsend was also co-director of the 2019 St. Mary’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which provided opportunities for students to work on mentored projects over the summer.

Townsend’s research group will continue to work with SolarCube LLC to develop printed solar cells. SolarCube LLC is located at the TechPort incubator in California, Maryland. Townsend plans to print a prototype solar module using the support of the MIPS award and work with SolarCube LLC on ways to adapt the lab-scale process into industrial-scale printing-press manufacturing.

Townsend said, “Just like the printing press revolutionized the written word, rapid roll-to-roll printing of electronics is the next step.”

For more information about the project, please visit TEDx Leornardtown video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivV1w2GFcmE&feature=youtu.be

SMCM Student Research Projects Generating Steady Interest

The team of student and professors working on vCalc projects

The team of students and professors working on vCalc projects

A grant jointly funded by the Maryland Industrial Partnerships program and vCalc LLC in 2016 continues to generate steady interest at vCalc.com. St. Mary’s College of Maryland was awarded $97,361 to support student projects for vCalc.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program promotes the development and commercialization of products and processes through industry/university research partnerships. MIPS provides matching funds to help Maryland companies pay for the university research. Projects are initiated by the companies to meet research and development goals.

vCalc (see 90 second YouTube video here) is a fast-growing calculator, equation and dataset library that helps users create, collaborate and quickly calculate. Topics range from complex scientific equations to practical everyday equations. vCalc has hundreds of calculators and thousands of equations created by engineers, professors and students from around the world.

The St. Mary’s research team developed equations for vCalc.com in math, chemistry, psychology, physics, and economics during the summer of 2016. The team was composed of students Caleb Svobodny, Austin Schlegel, Daria Vaseneva, Emma Skekel, Tyler Jones, Caroline Robertson, Savannah Bergen and Chris Lynch. Professors Emek Kose, Josh Grossman, Richard Platt, Randolph Larsen and Shizuka Nishikawa supported the project.

Kurt Heckman, president of vCalc, recently reported that several of the calculators created by SMCM students posted at vCalc.com are generating significant regular traffic to the site, including Savannah Bergen’s Characteristic Polynomial of a 3×3 matrix, which regularly gets used over 1,000 times per month, and Emma Skekel’s chemistry calculator to compute Kp from Kc, which sees 1,700 page hits per month, with an average time on page of 12 minutes and 38 seconds! According to Heckman, “that’s terrific engagement, and clearly an indication of how useful this calculator has become to chemistry students”.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor Wins MIPS Award for Research Innovation

Dr Troy Townsend and Solar Tech project manager Jeff Croisetiere shake hands

Troy Townsend, assistant professor of chemistry at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, left, and Jeff Croisetiere, ’04 SMCM alumnus and project manager for Solar Tech Inc. are working together to develop a proof-of-concept process to print low-cost and lightweight solar modules.

Troy Townsend, assistant professor of chemistry at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM), was awarded a $100,000 technology product development grant through the Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program. Townsend will be working closely with Solar Tech Inc., a Maryland-based startup company, to develop a proof-of-concept process to print low-cost and lightweight solar modules from the bottom up.

Townsend explained that with this process in place, Solar Tech Inc. aims to produce solar panels faster and at a fraction of the cost of traditional silicon-based photovoltaics.

“We are very excited to partner with the College to develop new solar technology that can be applied both for commercial and residential applications,” said Jeff Croisetiere, ’04 SMCM alumnus and project manager for Solar Tech Inc.

Solar Tech Inc. specializes in solar electric and solar thermal systems for residential, business and municipal applications. The company has served the Southern Maryland area since 2005.

Townsend said the project involves using inorganic nanocrystal inks in air under ambient conditions to produce printable solar modules. This comes in contrast to current solar modules, which are created using high-purity silicon under vacuum and high temperatures.

“It’s mostly about getting solar power to people in a more cost effective way. Solar cells right now are a little bit too expensive for the average person,” he said. “By reducing the cost of fabrication and installation, solar companies will be able to sell more affordable systems.”

“The collaboration between our research group at St. Mary’s College and Solar Tech Inc. strengthens the college’s ties with the community and offers our students first-hand experiences bringing new technology out into the entrepreneurial market.” Townsend said, “We predict that this partnership will create jobs in Maryland in the next few years as we develop our process.”

Along with this project comes more opportunities for state-of-the-art undergraduate research, while students also benefit from the broad liberal arts college experience. Elena Donahue, a rising senior chemistry major and math minor, is the lead research student on this project. She has been working on synthesizing nanocrystal inks and fabricating devices since her freshman year. “I was very fortunate to begin research early in my undergrad career, and under the guidance of Dr. Townsend I have learned many useful skills in the lab,” Donahue said. Solar Tech Inc. and Dr. Townsend expect that this project will lead to more undergraduate research opportunities and future collaboration.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program promotes the development and commercialization of products and processes through industry/university research partnerships. MIPS provides matching funds to help Maryland companies pay for the university research.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,700 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland.