Finalists

NANOTECHNOLOGY CATEGORY

Adesso Biosciences
Sector: Nanobiotechnology , Nanomedicine, Diagnostics
Project Description:
Real-time, single-molecule, label-free detection of SNPs, STRs and protein binding for use in personalized medicine.

Advantageous Systems LLC
Sector: Nanobiotechnology , Nanomedicine, Diagnostics
Project Description:
Blood tests are the most common diagnostic procedure for the indication of bacterial and viral infections, immunological deficiencies, and proper regulation of glucose as well as detection of other molecules, or analytes, found in blood. Minimally-invasive analyte detection will simplify blood tests and reduce distress for patients suffering pain and anxiety from needles and pinpricks. Previous technologies for minimally- invasive or non-invasive analyte detection include indirect detection of analytes in sweat or other excreted fluids in addition to complicated machinery that yields variable results due to difficult calibration requirements. Advantageous Systems LLC (ADS) is a start-up company using magnetic nanoparticles to directly remove analytes from blood in a minimally-invasive manner, thereby selectively and accurately detecting glucose or any other analyte from blood without breaching skin. Nanoparticles are safe, effective, and used extensively in medicine including targeted cancer cell ablation, chemotherapy drug delivery, and contrast agents for magnetic resonance and computed tomography (CT) imaging. The minimally- invasive detection of analytes in blood using magnetic nanoparticles is a novel platform developed by ADS and currently patent pending. Projected initial markets for such diagnostic tools include minimally-invasive detection of glucose for diabetics, minimally-invasive detection of bioterrorism pathogens, and minimally-invasive detection of HIV/AIDS.

Bio-nanomagnetite
Sector: Cleantech, Energy, Sensors, Environment
Project Description:
Microbial Production of Bio-nanomagnetite from Wastewater It has been discovered that bio-nanomagnetite can be produced by culturing a thermophilic, dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing microorganism designated ?SK 674? in wastewater of different origin in the presence of a ferric iron compound. Unlike the production of magnetite by other iron-reducers that is carried out in complex synthetic medium, the production of bio-nanomagnetite by SK 674 could be achieved from wastewater, without additional supplementation with inorganic salts, trace minerals, vitamins, and organic carbon sources. The produced bio-magnetitemagnetite could be easily recovered due to its high magnetic properties and used as inexpensive material for wastewater treatment. The magnetite production under thermophilic conditions (50°C) has additional advantages such as disinfection and high rate of the process. What is claimed is: 1.A method of producing bio-nanomagnetite comprising culturing under anaerobic conditions a thermophilic, dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing microorganism designated SK 674 and deposited at the German Collection of Microorganisms in wastewater in the presence of a ferric iron compound. 2.A method according to claim 1 wherein wastewater comprises liquid phase after anaerobic digestion of activated sludge. 3.A method according to claim 1 wherein wastewater comprises a mix of liquid phase after anaerobic digestion of activated sludge and municipal wastewater.

Cellectron NanoWare
Sector: Nanobiotechnology , Nanomedicine, Diagnostics
Project Description:
Cellectron NanoWare ? CNW is a young biotech company that is a joint venture between two shareholders: the first one is WetWare Concepts srl, an Padua University spin-off, which has brought the competencies on biotechnological modified cells, and on the interfacing between cells and microelectronics sensors. The second one is Nanosim srl, an innovative research based company with a strong experiences on nano-fabrication process and owns the patents on which CNW bases its technologies. The project which is under development is a new whole-living-cell nanostructured biosensor aimed to detect doping elements and drugs in biological samples of humans and animals. This innovative bio-nano-sensor is called Myochip and targets to be a new cheap and wide range screening device for antidoping and food&quality markets. Myochip integrates a new nanotechnology based sensors into biotechnologically modified cells. The device is able to detect in real time a wide range of doping drugs, even if new or unknown, because it detects the biological effects rather than the single substance, acting as a screening of first level .The approach is completely new in relationship to the used methodology, which are slow and expensive. Myochip, since its plasticity thanks to the power of life, can be used also as a screening device for new drugs and it is a powerful lab-on-chip. The core of the Myochip is an innovative nano-sensors based on low cost patent-pending nano-fabbrication technology developed by our Chief Technologies Officer Dr. (PhD) Fabrizio Estini. Our Mission is to developed a new powerful tools based on nano-fabrication technology to the diagnostic and food quality labs.

NanoThread Inc.
Sector: Nanomaterials and Nanoparticles
Project Description:
The technology is a unique approach to the systhesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), both single-walled and multi-walled, that will yield CNTs of defined chiralty and of essentially unlimited length. The process will yield CNTs requiring little cleanup or other downstream processing, thus being much less expensive that current manufacturing processes for purified CNTs.

PROLABIN & TEFARM
Sector: Nanomaterials and Nanoparticles
Project Description:
Originating as Spin-Off of Perugia University (Italy) in June 2008, PROLABIN & TEFARM srl aims to develop skill and knowledge in inorganic and inorgano organic layered materials acquired by the promoting partners in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory of the Department of Chemistry and in the Pharmaceutical Technology Laboratory. PROLABIN & TEFARM will focus its activity in the design, synthesis and sales of synthetic hydrotalcites and layered phosphates and phosphonates of polyvalent metals as powders of micro and nano size, nanostructured by means of intercalation, grafting and adsorption reactions with suitable functional species. Innovation resides in offering layered materials tailored for applications in the emerging areas of polymeric nanocomposites, pharmaceutical care, heterogeneous catalysis. PROLABIN & TEFARM has three main business areas to develop: 1- Design, synthesis and sale of nano fillers of polymeric matrices to enhance their mechanical, gas barrier and flame retardant properties. Additives, suitably designed to confer to the nanocomposites additional optical, electrical, biomedical properties will be also produced. 2- Design production and commercialization of layered materials, essentially anionic clays, loaded with species with biological activity as additives of cosmetic and pharmaceutical care formulations. 3-Research and technical support to customers to induce innovation in their production based on projects in collaborations with industries, universities and research centers. PROLABIN & TEFARM srl aims to enter nanostructurated additive market. It is confidential to offer market price competitive products, having some strong points like chemical purity, efficacy, versatility and environmental safety. These nanostructurate additives will respect the new European normative RoHS regarding restriction for the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.

Rolith
Sector: Nanosystems, Tools, Instruments, Devices
Project Description:
Nanolithography is a process of generation nano-size patterns rapidly from chip to chip, wafer to wafer, or substrate to substrate. It is a key process for nanostructuring, which determines the throughput and the cost of modern electronic and optical devices or systems. Unfortunately, currently there are no established nanolithography methods, which allow massively parallel cost-effective fabrication. Traditional Optical Lithography is currently limited to feature sizes around 0.13 ?m in commercial IC fabrication. Sequential Lithography techniques (e-beam, focus ion beam, laser beam, and STM/AFM) are too expensive and impractical to implement because of the serial nature of these schemes. Contact-based Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) is cheaper, but does not provide necessary throughput (currently <5 wafers-per-hour) and yield (high defects probability due to polymer UV-shrinkage and air trapping). Rolith, Inc. is developing a new concept of high throughput optical nanolithography for the fabrication of complex nanostructures on large areas of substrate materials. At the core of this method is novel implementation of advanced optical nanolithography techniques ? Near-field Phase-Shift Lithography and Surface Plasmon Resonance Lithography, the methods, which proved to be reliable in fabrication of nanostructures beyond the diffraction limit. Limited depth of field for these evanescent optical techniques was an obstacle for commercialization: large area patterning was problematic due to rigid requirements on air gaps between mask and photosensitive layer. Rolith Inc. removes these obstacles by providing a system for large area high throughput nanolithography. ?Rolling? photomask design provides necessary control of relative position of phase-shift or plasmonic mask and a photoresist. This technology will enable low cost manufacturing of photonic crystals and plasmonic nanostructures for efficiency enhancement of Solar Cells and LEDs, nanowires for large area Flat Panel Displays and magnetic nanostructures for Discrete Tracks ? the next generation magnetic storage media.

ThunderNIL
Sector: Nanosystems, Tools, Instruments, Devices
Project Description:
Within few years the present Hard Disk Drive (HDD) technology will be superseded by that of Patterned Media (PM), where data are stored in an array of single-domain magnetic particles, with recording densities exceeding 1 Tbit/inch2. This technology is requiring an additional step of fabrication, represented by the patterning of large substrate (1-5 inch in diameter) with ultra-small features (20-30 nm), very low cost (~1 $/substrate) and high throughput (>1000 substrates/h). The only available technologic option for this very challenging task, is Nanoimprinting Lithography (NIL), existing in two versions, i.e. thermal NIL and UV-NIL. At present, only UV-NIL has shown the potential to attain the tough specifications of PM industry, whereas the thermal-NIL was suffering from problems of too low throughput. The technology proposed by the Italian team ?ThunderNIL? might revolutionize this scenario. The team has demonstrated a high throughput high resolution patterning technology (belonging to the family of thermal NIL processes) based on a new type of stamps with integrated heater element. The heater is in the form of a buried conductive layer under its patterned surface, and the stamp can be heated by injecting short (~100 µs) intense (~1000 A) current pulses. This allows to accomplish the thermal cycle necessary to melt a thin thermoplastic polymer and to indent the nanofeatures at the surface of the stamp into it within ~100 µs, drastically reducing the thermal cycle duration of the present state of the art process of several minutes (i.e. ~5 min). As a consequence, this technology could reach unprecedented levels of productivity, limited only by the time that the robotic system in charge of substrate handling will spend in the process of wafer loading/unloading, which could presumably reduced down to 1-3 sec in a well engineered system, to meet the throughput target of >1000 substrate/hour.

VINCI
Sector: Nanomaterials and Nanoparticles
Project Description:
The increase of the energy of thunderstorms is evident to everyone. We developed a technology for production of reactants useful in weather control as anti-hail protection, for the dispersion of cold fogs and for the stimulation of precipitation. Departments that would have a direct benefit of this technology are: agriculture, traffic (land and air), tourism and water management. By using different synthesis methods and by varying the chemical composition, reactants with differentiated activity can be produced. Anti-hail protection will be the first main focus here. According to the World Meteorological Organization, 100 million hectars are protected with anti-hail systems, and in most cases silver (sometimes lead) iodide is used. Silver iodide is a highly activated substance for the crystalization of liquid water in clouds. Rockets and airplanes are usually employed to carry the product into clouds, being ground-based generators (for the combustion of the reagents) less effective. The essential defects of silver iodide are the high price and limited activity, and this limits its use on a wider scale. In our research on ice nucleation in clouds, we concluded that the efficiency is maximised when the structure of the reagent is closer to the structure of ice and when a large number of nuclei are made available. This can be obtained in a nanocrystalline powder made of a suitable mixture of iodides partly following the patent No. 48421-P-339/92 (author M. Huter et al.) for which we hold the technology and know-how.

POLYMER-BASED MATERIALS

CHISMATECH
Sector: New Process Technologies for Polymers and Composites
Public Description:
The team CHISMATECH will focus its activities on the development of a novel technology for components of the auxetic type, in particular for uses as structural core composite materials based on some novel chiral noncentresymmetric topologies. The materials developed will be used in sandwich applications. Traditionally, Sandwich structures are widely used in civil, naval, aerospace constructions, and electromagnetic shield applications. Common core materials used are foams and honeycomb solids, like regular hexagonal ones. The possibility of designing structures optimised simultaneously for mechanical and electromagnetic applications is severely limited by the fixed topology of the core material. The novel technology for core material developed by the CHISMATECH team is based on a novel chiral noncentresymmetric topology. The use of the novel topology and of RTM production techniques allows to obtain easily a core material with improved mechanical and electromagnetic shielding properties. The most notable property is the negative Poisson ratio which allows to classify these materials as auxetic. The latter property rise up interesting characteristics such as: the control of the core?s deformation while folding that lead to obtain synclastic curvature allowing the fabrication of dome-like structures with reduced in-plane buckling stresses, as opposed to analogous structures made of ?classical? positive Poisson?s ratio material.; the improvement of electromagnetic shielding properties together with improved damping properties; the possibility to counteract the traditionally observed thermal shrinkage. The business of the CHISMATECH team will be focused on the manufacture of in- house products for the aerospace, the automotive and naval markets and on the consultancy for customers interested in the development of proprietary components based on the chiral noncentresymmetric topologies concepts.

Q-Pack
Sector: Polymer-based material for: Electronics, Construction, Transportation , Biomedical Products and Devices, Energy, Textile, Environment , Packaging
Project Description:
The project is based on the preparation of novel food packaging materials having an active role regarding product preservation and shelf-life extension. Nowadays food packaging needs to be designed for carrying an active role in processing, preserving and retaining the safety and quality of foods throughout the distribution chain. An essential market requirement is in fact to preserve package contents and prevent or retard decomposition. In this perspective, the nanotechnology has been shown to be very effective and the new generation of packaging materials prepared by using nanocomposite materials seem to have the right requirements for preserving quality of foods. By adding appropriate nanoparticles to polymeric matrices it is possible to produce packages with stronger mechanical, barrier and thermal performance. Moreover, to food safety, specific designed nanostructures materials can prevent the invasion of bacteria and micro-organisms and control the gas atmosphere inside the package as well as moisture. Our business is that to propose on the market polymer-based materials which suit legislative, market and functional requirements, by using our technology for preparing nanocomposites with high dispersion of nanoparticles. Our material is a multi-functional material mainly composed of a polyolefin and ad-hoc modified nanoclays. Organo-clays with specific surfactants (also reactive) between the layers (both layered silicates and biocompatible hydrotalcite-like compounds) and easily intercalable by organic anions, including biologically active species, are prepared and dispersed in the polyolefin. The hybrid-material is in this way provided of special functionalities besides of enhanced mechanical, thermal and gas barrier properties. Special compatibilizers (functionalized polyolefins) prepared in our lab and having specific functional grafted groups (prepared also with environmental friendly reagents) are integral part of the process, allowing to fine-tune the reactivity and degree of adhesion between matrix material and filler particles.

M.I.T.E.S. srl
Sector: Polymer-based material for: Electronics, Construction, Transportation , Biomedical Products and Devices, Energy, Textile, Environment , Packaging
Project Description:
M.I.T.E.S. (Materials for information traceability encryption and security) is an academic spin-off of the University of Perugia. The goal of MITES is the production of polymeric materials containing codified and decoding information named DIPM (decoding informative plastic materials) covered by an European Patent. DIPM are the result of the synergy between nanotechnology and biotechnology. They are polymer nanocomposite materials containing complex information; this information could be transformed in a discrete code ensuring an asymmetry of the reading and reproduction process. DIPM can be obtained adding to the normal polymer a known quantity of: - Complex organic and inorganic molecules - Controlled microrganisms The dispersion at nanometric scale of few quantities of additive changes the specific electromagnetic spectrum of the nanocomposite. So, DIPM will produce a specific spectrum in different ranges: IR, VISIBLE and UV. DIPM technology gives three levels of security: - DIPM controlled and confidential composition - Algorithm and reading set which generate the code - One DIPM can generate if necessary different codes: APPLICATIONS DIPM technology is extremely versatile and it can be used to certify, monitoring and tracing a product and its life. DIPM can be the raw material for a product, part of the product of the product packaging and/or label. DIPM assure a higher security compared to the traditional anti-counterfeiting systems. DIPM allow multiple applications in various fields as food technology, textile, pharmaceutical and other industrial sectors, artistic, banking, etc.

RALOS
Sector: Polymer-based material for: Electronics, Construction, Transportation , Biomedical Products and Devices, Energy, Textile, Environment , Packaging
Project Description:
The RALOS project aims to bind fashion to electronic technology by producing innovative polymer based photovoltaic cells, characterized by flexibility, lightness and low cost, to be integrated in clothes. The RALOS team plans to manufacture solar cells through the Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSCs) approach using a structure based on vertically oriented TiO2 nanotubes array film, trasparent conducting fluorine doped tin oxide layer (FTO) and plastic substrate. Our photovoltaic cells will be manufactured in order to create various shapes and geometries so giving an aesthetic value to the items (T-shirt, jackets, sweatshirts, trousers, etc.).

Silvertech
Category: Polymer-based material for: Electronics, Construction, Transportation , Biomedical Products and Devices, Energy, Textile, Environment , Packaging
Project Description:
Silvertech will produce a novel engineered textiles with unique antibacterial properties, for a number of applications, based on silver nanoclusters deposition both on natural and synthetic fibers. The technique of silver deposition is based on wet impregnation of the substrate in a proprietary silver containing solution followed by desiccation and curing processes. Such patented treatment is very durable on the substrates also after substantial number of industrial washings and doesn?t require binders. Silver antibacterial property consists in the release of silver ions that, ingested by the microbe, destroy its cellular walls, forbid its reproduction and breaks off its metabolism.