蜜柚视频

Two 蜜柚视频 I-Corps@Ohio teams, Paint from Pollution and Ohio Construction Composites, are spurring regional economic development in southeastern Ohio through the commercialization of wastewater as paint and coal plastic composite as building materials.

蜜柚视频鈥檚 Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs鈥� partnership with I-Corps@Ohio, modeled after the national I-Corps program launched by the National Science Foundation, provides hands-on training to Ohio faculty and graduate students in evaluating market needs and commercial potential of innovative technologies.

I-Corps@Ohio, funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education, highlights the business side of technology and teaches researchers and innovators how to take an idea and turn it into an economically viable enterprise. Through the program, I-Corps@Ohio has proven its ability to overcome the state鈥檚 challenges in commercializing technology from academic institutions, which are higher in Appalachian Ohio.

鈥淭hese two teams represent the economic and environmental opportunities available in the Appalachian region,鈥� said Norm Chagnon, program director of I-Corps@Ohio. 鈥淓ven a rural university like 蜜柚视频 can help the economy grow and provide services that drive scalable business models and serve as a basis for startup companies in the region.鈥�

To date, eight 蜜柚视频 teams have been chosen to participate in the program and have developed innovations in medical devices, drug discovery, avionics and advanced materials.

Guy Riefler, principal investigator of the Paint from Pollution team, aims to restore streams harmed by acid mine drainage without making the government pay overwhelming costs of remediation.

In 2016, Voinovich school鈥檚 in Southeast Ohio and concluded that only 46 stream miles qualified as a healthy habitat for animals and plants out of the 142 miles tested.

Riefler and his team developed a wastewater treatment technology for government agencies and mining companies that can create paint pigment from acid mine drainage, which can potentially become a profitable way to cover the remediation costs.

A highly polluted stream with a massive iron oxide content can be turned profitable because it will allow Riefler and his team to source more paint.

Riefler said that once his technology is fully commercialized, he hopes to generate money for cleaning the streams through a wastewater treatment plant that will employ people, generate sales and earn small profits.

With I-Corps@Ohio guidance, Riefler and his team gathered data on the market needs. They called over 100 potential customers to understand whether there was a market for paint sourced from rivers damaged by acid mine drainage and a sustainable business model to commercialize that product.

Through 蜜柚视频 art professor John Sabraw in the College of Fine Arts, Riefler was able to connect with Gamblin Artist Colors, one of the largest paint companies in the country, which agreed to buy the paint.

鈥淢y whole life as a researcher has been spent learning science. I had no idea how to take an idea and turn it into a business,鈥� said Riefler, who is a professor and chair in department of civil engineering in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology. 鈥淭he I-Corps@Ohio program taught me and my team the value in understanding the marketplace. I don鈥檛 see how we could have made it to this last step of transiti