Every year, the MSSI Innovation Fund provides support to 捆绑SM社区 faculty members to accelerate the development of an idea or a technology toward widespread societal adoption by funding research that informs policy or moves an innovation toward commercialization. This year鈥檚 fund will distribute $90,000 to two projects that have the potential to make electric vehicle batteries safer and create a fully recyclable and highly reusable cellulose-based packaging material.
The next Innovation Fund is scheduled for Winter 2023. The MSSI also offers support to 捆绑SM社区 researchers through the Ideas Fund and the Social Science and Humanities Ideas Fund. More information is available on the MSSI website.
Here is an overview of the two new projects:
Multi-reconfigurable materials for recyclable packaging
Damiano Pasini (Mechanical Engineering)
This project combines a cellulose-based material with notions of paper folding to create a fully recyclable package with reconfigurable functionalities unmet by existing packaging technology. This lightweight material will also have impressive load-bearing capabilities and be fully collapsible to save space and reduce transportation costs. The goal at this stage is to test the material鈥檚 integrity and functionality when used in service conditions with exposure to varying environmental temperatures and moisture levels.
Development of high-throughput ball milling for battery materials synthesis
Eric McCalla (Chemistry)
Ball milling is used extensively in advanced battery materials research and production, either for coatings or in making nanometric materials of high interest. The traditional approach is to make one sample at a time on the gram-scale, which is both time and resource intensive. This project will develop a high-throughput ball mill jar that will permit the preparation of 64 materials simultaneously on the milligram-scale. This methodology will then be applied to various battery materials such as carbon-coated cathodes and amorphous solid electrolytes.
To learn more about previously funded Innovation projects, visit the MSSI website.
