Defense Department funds Texas nanotechnology consortium

Defense Department funds Texas nanotechnology consortium

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced Nov. 2 a $1.4 million Department of Defense grant for a new research consortium that includes Rice and six other Texas universities focused on developing and commercializing new nanomaterials for the defense aerospace industry.

The Consortium for Nanomaterials for Aerospace Commerce and Technology, or CONTACT, comprises Rice, The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at Brownsville, the University of Texas Pan American and the University of Houston.

CONTACT researchers will partner with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate in Dayton, Ohio, to develop and rapidly commercialize the next-generation composites and smart materials the Air Force needs to ensure U.S. air superiority in the 21st century.

”Texas has emerged as a pre-eminent leader in nanotechnology research,” Hutchison said. ”The formation of CONTACT is crucial to future advances in this important field.”

CONTACT’s activities build upon a four-year federal investment in nanotechnology research infrastructure at the partner institutions. That program, the Strategic Partnership for Research in Nanotechnology (SPRING), was supported with $37.5 million for the purchase of critical equipment and infrastructure at the seven partner schools.

”Texas is already a leader in nanotechnology research, and this critical funding will help us leverage that for aerospace commerce, a strong national defense and high-tech jobs statewide,” said Jack Agee, CONTACT’s new executive director, who will run day-to-day operations of CONTACT from Rice’s Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

Rice’s $8 million in SPRING funding paid for dozens of pieces of critical equipment, including equipment for Houston’s first state-of-the-art academic ”clean room” nanomanufacturing facility, four mass spectrometers, and two transmission electron microscopes.

”SPRING and CONTACT are precisely the kind of federal-state partnerships that the U.S. needs in order to insure that the nation’s investment in nanotechnology pays off in the form of better jobs, improved national security and a stronger economy,” said Smalley Institute Director Wade Adams.

CONTACT’s research program includes:

• the establishment of an industrial partnership for transferring technology to the private sector and transitioning capabilities into Air Force and Department of Defense systems.
• the formation of an intellectual property management team with at least five key industrial partners having technical transfer and transition experience.
• the development of a broad network of commercialization partners that includes small- and medium-sized businesses.
• one-third of CONTACT appropriations to go toward the purchase of critical R&D equipment and infrastructure.
• the development of revolutionary nanomanufacturing platforms to enable transition of technologies into military applications and commercial products.
• integration of education and research programs in aerospace technologies in collaboration with University of Texas Pan American and University of Texas Brownsville’s Nano-at-the-Border Program in order to broaden the impact of the initiative to this historically under-represented region.