Past i-Teams projects have scooped three prizes in this year’s Cambridge University Entrepreneurs £1k competition and teams including i-Teams alumni won three more. Many many congratulations to all the winners!!!!!
The successful i-Teams entries were:
Camses (Giorgio Divitini & Caterina Ducati)
We developed a catalyst based on TiO2, a standard industrial material, that can exploit both natural and artificial light for degrading pollutants in air while also killing pathogens. The efficiency is much higher (at least 10x) compared to pristine TiO2 and other catalysts on the market or in the scientific literature. A team of 7 people is working on commercialising the IP, conducting R&D until a licensing agreement can be achieved with a major international company. This will constitute a “low hanging fruit”, which will be leveraged to further R&D and novel applications. i-Teams Michaelmas 2012
Sensor Hut (Tanya Hutter & Marc Stettler)
There is a growing demand for robust sensor technologies to be used in chemical process control, mining and homeland security. In addition, increased awareness of the toxicity of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has led to lowered exposure limits and increased requirements for direct measurement. SensorHut Ltd is an earlystage start‐up aiming to develop innovative sensor technologies for the measurement of VOCs. Our patent pending platform technology is based on a low‐cost nano‐structured optical element and fast optical detection.
The technology can be easily adapted to detect certain compound of interest and thus can be used in various markets and applications. i-Teams Lent 2013
Hydrogen Sponge (Enass Abo‐Hamed, Jonathon Blackburn, Shin Nikkuni, Pu Zhao, Selina Wang, Luke Sperrin)
Hydrogen gas for use as a clean fuel is a multi‐billion dollar market. The hydrogen economy has been a part of an envisioned clean energy future for decades, yet significant hurdles remain in seeing that vision become reality, due in part to difficulties in storing hydrogen. We have developed a novel “sponge‐like” material that catalytically produces and stores hydrogen gas at room temperature, and on heating releases the hydrogen in a safe and on‐demand manner. The material is recyclable numerous times; furthermore, the gas release temperature can be modulated, giving the flexibility needed to suit various applications in different industries. i-Teams Easter 2013 & Michaelmas 2013