Lemmon, Illinois, July 12, 2024–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory’s Laboratory Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP), Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI), is welcoming five new innovators to the award-winning program’s eighth class.
The five will begin the two-year program this July. Each innovator will be full-time at Argonne and collaborate with a host scientist at the lab. The innovators will launch startup companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase U.S. competitiveness in emerging technologies. These technologies could support an equitable American clean energy economy and help the U.S. achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
CRI’s impact is far-reaching, as it enters its eighth year of placing entrepreneurs at Argonne. Through May 2024, CRI startups will have raised more than $643 million in total funding, and the program has helped create 679 jobs to date.
“Collaborations like the CRI’s with early-stage startups help unlock the immense potential of our laboratory’s scientific expertise,” said Argonne National Laboratory Director Paul Kearns. “Through teamwork, we can leverage our collective knowledge and capabilities to advance scientific innovations to market and create economic prosperity.”
The five new innovators joining CRI’s eighth cohort are:
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Angela Feldhaus, Self-Elevating Near-Space Platform for Atmospheric Sensing and Communications
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Haining Gao improves the energy of lithium primary batteries with solid-liquid hybrid cathode
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Berk Kovos, SynthBits: Illuminating Designer Qubits for Everyone
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Jhana Porter, Transforming Bio-based Surplus Streams into High-Value Polymer Bioproducts
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Scott Svadlenak, Validating the economic feasibility of a new process for upcycling PVC
“We believe that science is the foundation of innovation that will bring about a sustainable, thriving, and equitable world,” said CRI Director Dick Koh, “and what better way to realize that promise than by anchoring innovators at Argonne, America’s first national laboratory.”
The innovators were judged by industry experts, investors, scientists and engineers and selected through a nationwide recruitment process and two-part pitch competition.
CRI is supported by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies, Office of Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization, Office of Building Technologies, DOE’s Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, and Argonne National Laboratory.
Applications for the 9th CRI class will open on September 4th.
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contact address
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Argonne National Laboratory
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Email: media@anl.gov
