We're excited to introduce MEIA's alumni Startup Teams. MEIA's goal is to help create or expand Maryland-based clean energy businesses. Learn more about the teams below.
Vecino is a climate-friendly hyperlocal supply chain system leveraging small businesses' collective free space and nearby neighbors' delivery capacity. This technology will help shipping carriers eliminate door-to-door services by vehicle for a net-zero carbon emission final mile. In addition, Vecino empowers local economies by passing those savings on to its small businesses and neighborhood partners.
Vecino's Gabriel Cepeda, a multi-time entrepreneur, an alumnus of Baltimore's Upsurge Equitech Accelerator and has been highlighted by New York Times and Fox Business.
Onat Dogruer is the President and co-founder of Archer Power Solutions. Onat has been in the entrepreneurial space for over 15 years. He received his MBA from Fordham, and has been boating since he was five. He has been in the marine air conditioning service field and moved to the Chesapeake area seven years ago. He realized the need for a smarter, more efficient air conditioning option while anchored in the Bay in the still August heat.
Based in Maryland, Archer Power Solutions has designed and developed an innovative battery-operated air conditioner system for "off-grid" use that can be used with any DC power, including solar. The smart system utilizes proprietary electronics that control the system by collecting data from sensors and constantly calculating and calibrating the compressor's performance and other unique electronic components based on environmental needs. These advanced electronics also minimize the amount of power draw the unit needs. Archer Power Solutions’ design also focuses on ease of installation and user-friendly maintenance. The company has already commercially manufactured a drop-in, install-it-yourself marine air conditioner. Air conditioning without the dependence on noisy, carbon-heavy, oil-based, and fuel-consuming generators is possible.
Dr. Dung Minh Hoang aims to develop innovative, nature-based solutions for nutrient recycling, water processing, and waste treatment. Dr. Minh has over nine years of experience as a research scientist at the New York University – School of Medicine. His academic background includes an Engineering and a Master's degree in microelectronics from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse (INSA de Toulouse, France) and a Ph.D. in Bio-Medical Engineering.
Aquatic Circle is an advanced water filtration system that provides water clarity without chemicals. Aquatic Circle has designed a nature-based water filter with limited maintenance. The product has a modular design with a patented coupling method between modules facilitating the swapping of dirty filter modules for clean ones while keeping the biological filter chamber intact. The Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) has already proven Aquatic Circle technology in aquaponics farming. While customer survey at the fish-keeping expo AquaShella shows customer potential for large fish tanks.
Team Leader Professor Ning Zeng
Ning Zeng is a professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at UMD and the founder/director of the Carbon Lockdown Project (CLP). He is the progenitor and world’s leading expert in a carbon sequestration technique called Wood Harvesting and Storage (WHS). It’s a hybrid natural/engineering technique, combining the best of human ingenuity with natural efficiency by burying woody biomass for long term sequestration.
Cooling-X co-founder Xingpeng Zhao is a research scientist in the lab of Dr. Liangbing Hu at the University of Maryland College Park. Cooling-X has developed the world’s first paint made from glass. This paint exhibits excellent solar reflection capabilities and provides radiative cooling to surfaces. The paint can be brushed and spray painted onto any surface, comes in various colors (not just white) and will become an important material in the fight against global warming.
Team Leader Professor Deepa Madan
Deepa Madan is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. FlexiCharge is a novel technology that generates power by utilizing the temperature difference between the human body and ambient air called a thermoelectric generator (TEG). TEGs are integrated with a step-up voltage circuit that will charge a capacitor or battery, enabling “off-grid” power production for wearable devices.
Team Leader Keith Gregorczyk
Ionic Devices is commercializing a novel methodology to produce lithium-ion batteries by leveraging semi-conductor manufacturing methods. These batteries have energy and power metrics that are orders of magnitude higher than conventional solid-state systems and are comparable to current market standards for liquid systems.
CEO Frank Yang
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Liatris Inc. is a start-up company based in Bethesda, MD, USA developing advanced materials for thermal insulation which are easy to install, efficient, non-flammable and non-toxic.
Sustainabli’s mission is to decarbonize scientific research. Fume hoods consume as much energy as 4 American houses and are a significant driver of energy waste within research labs. Sustainabli has built a fume hood management platform, Sashimi, to help research organizations reduce mechanical energy use by up to a third and meet energy reporting benchmarks. Sustainabli completed the MEIA Pre-Accelerator in 2021 and won the 2023 Pitch Dingman Competition and 2023 Do Good Challenge, the two premier pitch competitions at the University of Maryland.
Sustainabli was founded by Kevin Tu, an alumnus of the University of Maryland and a Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge; he is a published green chemistry researcher with 7 years of research experience at Johns Hopkins University and Duke University.
Team Leader Professor Weidong Zhu
Weidong Zhu is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UMBC and inventor of a novel technology to measure the full-field vibration of a rotating wind turbine blade. Using a camera to measure the rotation speed of the blade via a novel edge detection method and a long-range laser vibrometer to rotate with the blade and scan over the blade surface to measure its full-field vibration, the technology can detect local damage such as delamination in the blade.
Terra Fusion is a spinoff project from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the University of Maryland College Park. The technology will generate a competitive energy source through plasma confinement at thermonuclear conditions to gain net energy from fusion energy. Terra Fusion approach has simplified the approach by developing a centrifugal supersonic magnetic mirror. This design will deliver a simple magnetic confinement configuration that can scale to a viable fusion power source at a fraction of the cost of competing technologies.
Terra Fusion was founded by Professor Carlos A. Romero Talamás, whose research has focused on plasma physics and engineering, including high temperature plasma confinement, fusion energy, diagnostics, low temperature dusty plasmas, and magnet technology.
Uplift Geosystems has developed a process to store CO2 and co-produce value add metals for clean technology supply chains. The venture has adapted methods proven to work in metallurgical and water treatment industries to store CO2 as solid magnesium carbonate, which can be used as a construction material. Uplift’s technology stems from research at the University of Pennsylvania supported by an ARPA-E award. Dr. Daniel Nothaft, Uplift’s founder, is a geochemist and entrepreneur experienced in carbon mineralization, environmental tracers, and R&D management.
Team Leader Professor Bing Hu
Professor Bing Hu is Professor of Materials Science Engineering at UMD-College Park and co-founder of WH Battery, a battery technology company that will commercialize electrolytes developed by Professor Chunsheng Wang and a cellulose-based ion conductor developed by Professor Hu. These drop-in technologies are suitable for high-power extreme temperature uses as well as for long duration grid storage applications.
CEO Tim Shaw
Tim Shaw is a partner and co-founder at BrightWave. BrightWave has developed and patented an innovative microalgae photobioreactor (PBR) that will serve as the cornerstone of industrial scale cultivation and decarbonization projects. These smart, automated PBRs are internally illuminated and self-cleaning. They can be built to any specifications, and optimally leverage small footprints at manufacturing sites or within distressed urban properties. The self-cleaning function reduces downtime to practically zero.
BrightWave’s PBRs outperform existing algae cultivation platforms by a wide margin. BrightWave is pursuing commercialization opportunities in industries including food and animal feed, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, chemicals, plastics, and fuels.
Team Leader Professor Dave Tilley
Dave Tilley is the co-founder and CEO of Living Canopies as well as an Associate Professor in the Environmental Science and Technology Department at the University of Maryland--College Park. He invented the Living Umbrella technology based on an epiphany he had while suffering the extreme heat of a Las Vegas pool deck in 2015. The latest eco-technology is the Cool Green Shelter for Bus Stops, which protects waiting riders, manages stormwater, captures carbon, reduces air temperatures, provides free solar power for charging personal devices and collects environmental data.
Team Leader Bob Gatte
Bob Gatte, recently retired CTO of WR Grace, is CEO of HighT-Tech Catalyst. HighT-Tech's patented method of manufacturing and tuning of high entropy catalyst materials will create high performance, perfectly mixed and stable multi-element catalysts. This technology enables energy-efficient, clean and low-cost catalyst manufacturing; enables discovery of new materials and performance optimization; enables multiple catalyst functions within one material; and enables alloying of low-cost elements to replace noble metals.
Team Leader Joe James
Joe James is ATP-MD, LLC’s founder and inventor of its patented Combined Remediation Biomass and Bio-Product Production (CRBBP) Process, by which one plants and then multi-tasks special bio-crops to do good things for the health and well being of people, the planet and communities, less expensively. Those good things include capturing lots of atmospheric and flue gas CO 2, to combat Climate Change, while remediating air, soil and water, then converting the resulting biomass, sometimes using a patented carbonization technology, he has licensed, into a variety of cost-advantaged, circular economy bio-products, including a superior, bio-based alternative to carbon black filler powder.
In Baltimore, ATP-MD, LLC, with Exelon Foundation Climate Change Investment Initiative help, is commercializing an urban CRBBP Process application, capturing atmospheric CO 2, when remediating brownfields, and large-emitter flue gas CO 2, using Vertical Bio-Crop Farms (VBF’s).
Team Leader Sergio Baron
Sergio Baron is co-founder and CEO of Dynami Battery Corp. Dynami has created the first industrial scale technology to produce microstructured lithium battery electrodes. The Honeycomb Electrode(tm) has secondary pore networks which create up to 80% faster charging/higher power, and potentially longer cycle life. Dynami's production technology is cost neutral compared to traditional battery manufacturing techniques. Honeycomb electrodes are compatible with most current and future battery chemistries including solid state and the performance gains are additive to the specs of the materials to which it is applied. Fast charging/high power and longer cycle life are enabling technologies for the EV market, aerospace, and grid storage markets.
Team Leader Professor Chao Wang
Chao Wang is Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Wang's direct air capture of CO2 approach is based on electrochemical systems designed to operate under ambient conditions and is fully compatible with renewable electricity. This reduces energy consumption, lowers capture cost, and makes the process scalable.
Team Leader Pranay Kohli
Pranay Kohli is CEO of ACTIVEcharge, which offers an innovative approach to monitoring wind turbine blade health. This technology converts vibrational and rotational energy into electrical energy so that the sensors and data transmitters mounted hundreds of feet inside the blade do not need batteries or any additional electrical equipment to power the sensors. This reduces the long-term blade monitoring part of operation and maintenance (O&M) cost by 80%. Additionally, this eliminates the need for battery replacement and costly turbine shutdowns, increasing owner profits by approximately 1.5%/year. The technology is currently in prototype stage and looking to deploy a pilot with a turbine over the next 12 months.
Team Leader Professor Meilin Yu
Meilin Yu is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UMBC. Weidong Zhu is also a founder of this Startup. The Navita Tech Hybrid Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (HVAWT) is a hybrid of two classic vertical axis wind turbine designs – Darrieus H-Rotor plus Modified Savonius. The Navita Tech turbine outperforms traditional VAWTs by providing lower cut-in speed, higher power co-efficient, less noise, and longer system life due to its more rigid structural design. Distributed wind customers require turbines to be placed where the customer needs them, not where the wind resource is optimal. Thus, the best turbine is the one that performs best under the widest variety of conditions.
Team Leader Bob Gatte
Bob Gatte, recently retired CTO of WR Grace, is CEO of HighT-Tech Catalyst. HighT-Tech's patented method of manufacturing and tuning of high entropy catalyst materials will create high performance, perfectly mixed and stable multi-element catalysts. This technology enables energy-efficient, clean and low-cost catalyst manufacturing; enables discovery of new materials and performance optimization; enables multiple catalyst functions within one material; and enables alloying of low-cost elements to replace noble metals.
Team Leader Josh Cable
Josh Cable is CEO of InventWood, an innovator of advanced wood materials that offer better performance, lower costs, and greater environmental sustainability over commonly-used alternatives. One material, MettleWood, is up to 2x stronger and 5x lighter than high strength steel, presenting numerous commercialization opportunities in the construction, vehicle, and aerospace industries.
Team Leader Ryan Powell
Ryan Powell is CEO of Manta Biofuel, which is commercializing a technology and process for producing algae-based biofuels that was developed at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). These algal biofuels are produced using a low-cost high-throughput magnetic harvester with proprietary nanoparticles, as well as a low-cost hydrothermal liquefaction reactor. These innovations, along with a simplified biomass growth process, enable Manta Biofuel to produce a product that is cost effective in a competitive market. The algal biofuels serve as a replacement for crude oil in a variety of applications and Manta Biofuel is concentrating initially on heating oil. The algal filtration process can also be used to filter wastewater.
Team Leader Adam Landsman
Adam Landsman is President of PulseIQ!, a unique and innovative energy management and information service company. It delivers significant energy efficiency and cost savings by utilizing the power of big data and analytics from their proprietary networked thermostats combined with a state-of-the-art suite of HVAC sensors, controls, automation and optimization. They also offer intelligent system monitoring and alarms allowing them to identify issues before they become larger problems. With rising energy costs and aging infrastructure, this service presents an opportunity for older buildings to improve their physical and financial health while also improving their social and environmental impact.
Maryland Energy Innovation Accelerator
5000 College Ave., Suite 31010, College Park MD 20740
Maryland Energy Innovation Accelerator is an
initiative of the Maryland Clean Energy Center
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