Putting more PNNL inventions, expertise to commercial use

When you fly out of the Tri-Cities, you likely go through the Pasco airport’s full body scanner, a technology developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

If you have had cancer, you may be treated with another PNNL innovation — specific radioactive isotopes, targeted to kill cancer cells.

Ever played a compact disc or DVD? Thank a PNNL researcher.

It’s what the Department of Energy wants to see more of from its national laboratories.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz started the DOE Office of Technology Transition last year to expand the commercial impact of research at the national laboratories, and to help build bridges from lab scientists and their inventions to entrepreneurs and investors.

“We recognize we have to have those partnerships,” said Jetta Wong, director of the new program, during a visit to PNNL Friday.

Part of the issue is getting the word out that labs stand ready to help, Wong said.

“We think we can do more if people know what we can do,” said Peter Christensen, PNNL’s interim manager of technology deployment and outreach.

The Office of Technology Transfer is working to make sure that more businesses know they can license technologies from national laboratories, form partnerships with them, and access high-performance computers, microscopes and other scientific equipment.

“They don’t even know they can pick up a phone and talk to a scientist,” Wong said. “It doesn’t even cross people’s mind.”

PNNL already has 1,150 technology assistance projects nationwide, and in a typical year has more than 100 research and development collaborations with commercial partners. Recent business research partners have included Alcoa, Cisco, Cummins, General Motors and PepsiCo.

It has been picked as one of five national laboratories to lead the Small Business Voucher pilot, a program planned to connect more small businesses, like Percheron Power in Kennewick, with the scientific resources of national labs.

“Small businesses do not have the time to understand what goes on at national laboratories,” Wong said.

But they are innovation powerhouses for the nation, she said. They generate 16 times more patents per employee than larger businesses and account for 64 percent of net new job creation, according to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council.

“We are trying to streamline the process and make it easier for those businesses to engage” with national laboratories, Wong said.

Percheron Power competed in a first round for Small Business Voucher grant awards, recently winning PNNL expertise to help it design a better hydroturbine to produce electricity in small waterways, such as canals. A second round of competition for more small-business vouchers closes April 10.

PNNL also was picked early this year to manage the Lightweight Materials National Lab Consortium, or LightMAT, a one-stop shop for industrial researchers wanting access to experts or scientific instruments at nine national labs to develop lighter materials.

It matches industry research teams with the lab that can best help them develop and deploy materials faster and at less expense to increase U.S. competitiveness in manufacturing. For example, PNNL has worked with General Motors and Alcoa on a new welding technology that can help expand the use of lightweight aluminum in vehicles.

A new national project, Mission Innovation, could help keep some of the businesses launched with PNNL intellectual property or expertise in the Tri-City area, a goal for local economic development.

In November, President Obama joined with other world leaders to launch a landmark commitment to dramatically accelerate public and private clean energy innovation by investing in new technologies.

The most recent federal budget proposal called for $110 million to support 10 regional centers for energy innovation partnerships, Wong said. One such center could focus on the research and development that would be of value in Eastern Washington.

“You know what you need and we want to be able to support that,” Wong said. The centers would help develop networks and relationships that would make it more possible that companies commercializing new technologies would stay in the Tri-City area, she said.

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 12:38 PM with the headline "Putting more PNNL inventions, expertise to commercial use."