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Contract Opportunity

TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY

A New Process to Tune Metal Nanomaterial Size on Catalyst Supports

A simple, scalable method to precisely control the size of metal nanomaterials using low-cost complexing agents.

Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), offers the opportunity to explore a license and/or collaborative research agreement to commercialize this technology for synthesizing metal nanomaterials on catalyst supports. This technology transfer opportunity is part of a dedicated effort to convert government-funded research into job opportunities, businesses, and an improved way of life for the American people.

Overview: Supported metal nanomaterials catalyze many industrial reactions, such as the ammonia and ethylene industries. Precise control of the size of those supported metals is significant because the metal size affects both catalytic activity and selectivity. Typically, this is more of a challenging task and often involves high costs and complex processes such as physical vapor deposition. New, cost-effective methods to produce such nanomaterials are urgently needed to enable more energy-efficient operations in industries dependent on metallic catalyst systems.

Description: Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have developed a facile, one-pot method to mass produce varisized metal nanomaterial without using complex instruments or expensive reagents. The technique can be applied to a broad range of materials and has particles ranging in size from the atomic scale to tens of nanometers. The size of metal nanomaterials produced can be easily controlled by tuning the hydrolysis rate during synthesis.

Benefits:

• Cost savings result from using low-cost, readily available complexing agents like citric acid and ethylene glycol.


• Scalable for mass production due to ease of operation and cost-effectiveness.


• Easily control the size of released metal nanomaterials.

Applications:

• Catalyst systems for chemical production include:
  
  
  
  • Ammonia
  
  
  • Ethylene
  
  
  
  


• Electrochemical systems such as:
  
  
  
  • Li-ion batteries
  
  
  • Metal air batteries
  
  
  • Supercapacitors
  
  
  • Fuel Cells
  
  
  • Electrolyzers
  
  
  
  


• Catalyst systems for biomass conversion

Development Status: TRL 3 is currently undergoing proof-of-concept.

IP Status: Provisional Patent Application No. 17/445,687,” Methods of Forming Metal Nanomaterials,” BEA Docket No. BA-1233.

INL seeks to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available. Added value is placed on relationships with small businesses, start-up companies, and general entrepreneurship opportunities.

Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.

Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Andrew Rankin at td@inl.gov.

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