Nine research projects at Rice University have been granted $25,000 to advance their innovative solutions. Photo courtesy of Rice

Over a dozen Houston researchers wrapped up 2021 with the news of fresh funding thanks to an initiative and investment fund from Rice University.

The Technology Development Fund is a part of the university’s Creative Ventures initiative, which has awarded more than $4 million in grants since its inception in 2016. Rice's Office of Technology Transfer orchestrated the $25,000 grants across nine projects. Submissions were accepted through October and the winners were announced a few weeks ago.

The 2021 winners, according to Rice's news release, were:

  • Kevin McHugh, an assistant professor of bioengineering, is working on a method to automate an encapsulation process that uses biodegradable microparticles in the timed release of drugs to treat cancer and prevent infectious disease. He suggested the process could help ramp up the manufacture of accessible multidose vaccines.
  • Daniel Preston, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is developing a novel filtration system that will recover water typically released by cooling towers at natural gas power plants. The inexpensive filters will result in a significant savings in water costs during power generation.
  • Geoff Wehmeyer, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering; Matteo Pasquali, the A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of chemistry and materials science and nanoengineering; Junichiro Kono, the Karl F. Hasselmann Chair in Engineering, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, physics and astronomy and materials science and nanoengineering and chair of the applied physics program, and Glen Irvin Jr., a research professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, are creating a solid-state, active heat-switching device to enable the rapid charging of batteries for electric vehicles. The lightweight device will use carbon nanotube fibers to optimize battery thermal management systems not only for cars but also, eventually, for electronic devices like laptops.
  • Xia Ben Hu, an associate professor of computer science, is developing his open-source machine learning system to democratize and accelerate small businesses’ digital transformation in e-commerce.
  • Bruce Weisman, a professor of chemistry and of materials science and nanoengineering, and Satish Nagarajaiah, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of mechanical engineering, are working to advance their strain measurement system based on the spectral properties of carbon nanotubes. The system will allow for quick measurement of strain to prevent catastrophic failures and ensure the safety of aircraft, bridges, buildings, pipelines, ships, chemical storage vessels and other infrastructure.
  • Aditya Mohite, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and associate professor of materials science and nanoengineering, and Michael Wong, the Tina and Sunit Patel Professor in Molecular Nanotechnology, a professor and chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a professor of chemistry, materials science and nanoengineering and of civil and environmental engineering, are scaling up novel photoreactors for the environmentally friendly generation of hydrogen. Their process combines of perovskite-based solar cells and state-of-the-art catalysts.
  • Rebekah Drezek, a professor of bioengineering, and Richard Baraniuk, the C. Sidney Burrus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of statistics and computer science, are developing a system to rapidly diagnose sepsis using microfluidics and compressed sensing to speed the capture and analysis of microbial biomarkers.
  • Fathi Ghorbel, a professor of mechanical engineering and of bioengineering, is working on robotic localization technology in GPS-denied environments such as aboveground storage tanks, pressure vessels and floating production storage and offloading tanks. The system would enable robots to precisely associate inspection data to specific locations leading to efficiency and high quality of inspection and maintenance operations where regular inspections are required. This will dramatically improve the environmental impact and safety of these assets.
  • Kai Fu, a research scientist, and Yuji Zhao, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, are working to commercialize novel power diodes and transistors for electric vehicles. They expect their devices to reduce the volume of power systems while improving integration, power density, heat dissipation, storage, and energy efficiency.
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Houston team develops low-cost device to treat infants with life-threatening birth defect

infant innovation

A team of engineers and pediatric surgeons led by Rice University’s Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies has developed a cost-effective treatment for infants born with gastroschisis, a congenital condition in which intestines and other organs are developed outside of the body.

The condition can be life-threatening in economically disadvantaged regions without access to equipment.

The Rice-developed device, known as SimpleSilo, is “simple, low-cost and locally manufacturable,” according to the university. It consists of a saline bag, oxygen tubing and a commercially available heat sealer, while mimicking the function of commercial silo bags, which are used in high-income countries to protect exposed organs and gently return them into the abdominal cavity gradually.

Generally, a single-use bag can cost between $200 and $300. The alternatives that exist lack structure and require surgical sewing. This is where the SimpleSilo comes in.

“We focused on keeping the design as simple and functional as possible, while still being affordable,” Vanshika Jhonsa said in a news release. “Our hope is that health care providers around the world can adapt the SimpleSilo to their local supplies and specific needs.”

The study was published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, and Jhonsa, its first author, also won the 2023 American Pediatric Surgical Association Innovation Award for the project. She is a recent Rice alumna and is currently a medical student at UTHealth Houston.

Bindi Naik-Mathuria, a pediatric surgeon at UTMB Health, served as the corresponding author of the study. Rice undergraduates Shreya Jindal and Shriya Shah, along with Mary Seifu Tirfie, a current Rice360 Global Health Fellow, also worked on the project.

In laboratory tests, the device demonstrated a fluid leakage rate of just 0.02 milliliters per hour, which is comparable to commercial silo bags, and it withstood repeated disinfection while maintaining its structure. In a simulated in vitro test using cow intestines and a mock abdominal wall, SimpleSilo achieved a 50 percent reduction of the intestines into the simulated cavity over three days, also matching the performance of commercial silo bags. The team plans to conduct a formal clinical trial in East Africa.

“Gastroschisis has one of the biggest survival gaps from high-resource settings to low-resource settings, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” Meaghan Bond, lecturer and senior design engineer at Rice360, added in the news release. “We believe the SimpleSilo can help close the survival gap by making treatment accessible and affordable, even in resource-limited settings.”

Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to​ launch this year

gearing up

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year.

“We are immensely proud of the achievements to date and the exceptional record of safety performance as we advance towards commercial startup,” Hollub said of Stratos.

Carbon dioxide captured by Stratos will be stored underground or be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Oxy says Stratos is the world’s largest DAC facility. It’s designed to pull 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and either store it underground or use it for enhanced oil recovery. Enhanced oil recovery extracts oil from unproductive reservoirs.

Most of the carbon credits that’ll be generated by Stratos through 2030 have already been sold to organizations such as Airbus, AT&T, All Nippon Airways, Amazon, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and TD Bank.

The infrastructure business of investment manager BlackRock has pumped $550 million into Stratos through a joint venture with 1PointFive.

As it gears up to kick off operations at Stratos, Occidental is also in talks with XRG, the energy investment arm of the United Arab Emirates-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., to form a joint venture for the development of a DAC facility in South Texas. Occidental has been awarded up to $650 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the South Texas DAC hub.

The South Texas project, to be located on the storied King Ranch, will be close to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Initially, the roughly 165-square-mile site is expected to capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the potential to store up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

“We believe that carbon capture and DAC, in particular, will be instrumental in shaping the future energy landscape,” Hollub said.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.