2019 Accelerator Grant

Commercialization of Molded Wood Flour-Cellulose Nanomaterial Products

PI:  Mehdi Tajvidi, UM School of Forest Resources We propose commercialization of molded products that can be fabricated from wood flour and lignocellulosic nanomaterials, originated from Maine’s abundant fiber resource. The main advantage of the proposed product, compared with its plastic counterparts, is biodegradability and environmentally-benign end-of-life disposal. Moreover, both major components are made from […]

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Nanocellulose based Composites for Orthopedic Fixation Devices

PI:  Mike Mason, UM Chemical and Biological Engineering The targeted market for the proposed technology is that of orthopedic fixation devices, or devices used to hold bones together after surgery or trauma. Currently, this market is valued at ~$40.2 billion and predicted to grow to $61 billion by 2021. Biomaterials within this field currently possess […]

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Customer Discovery and Market Validation of Midlina – A multimodal software solution that will provide blind and visually-impaired (BVI) people with access to graphical information

PI:  Nicholas Giudice, UM School of Computing and Information Science Gaining access to graphical information (such as maps, graphs, and diagrams) is one of the biggest challenges for blind and visually-impaired (BVI) people. To address this major unmet and immediate need in the field of blindness accessibility, we have invented an innovative multimodal software solution […]

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