Tag: energy

  • $2.6B Venture Fund Aims for Health Care, Energy Companies

    New Enterprise Associates Inc., a venture capital company in Chevy Chase, Maryland, says it has closed its 14th fund with $2.6 billion in capital. New Enterprise says the new fund is its third consecutive property exceeding $2.5 billion, and brings the company’s total committed capital to more than $13 billion across all of its funds.…

  • Purdue Awards $200K for Research Commercialization

    The Trask Innovation Fund at Purdue University in Indiana has awarded some $200,000 to help Purdue researchers take their discoveries to market. The awards cover research on alternative fuels, pharmaceutical drug dosage forms, assisted reproductive technology, and a mobile app for note-taking. The Trask Innovation Fund is a program of the Purdue Research Foundation to…

  • VC Funding Cut for U.S. Firms, Science Companies Take Hit

    Venture capital investments in U.S.-based companies are down for the second quarter of 2012, with software and Internet companies favored over enterprises based on scientific discoveries. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, a financial industry research service, companies in the U.S. raised $8.1 billion in 863 deals during the second quarter of 2012, a nine percent…

  • Highly Transparent Solar Cells Developed for Window Glass

    Researchers at University of California in Los Angeles have developed solar cells with greater transparency that can be made to fit over windows and generate electric power. The findings from a team of UCLA engineers, materials scientists, and chemists appeared earlier this month in the journal ACS Nano (paid subscription required). The team developed a…

  • Grant to Fund On-Board Systems Extending Electric Car Range

    University of California in Riverside has received a one-year $95,000 grant from the California Energy Commission to develop algorithms that find the route requiring the least amount of energy for an electric car’s trip. The research will be done by the Center for Environmental Research and Technology, part of the university’s Bourns College of Engineering.…

  • Scientists Produce Ultralight Carbon Nanotube Material

    Researchers at Kiel University and Hamburg University of Technology in Germany have developed a network of porous carbon nanotubes that they say is the lightest material in the world. The research team, which includes a colleague from the Leibniz Institute of Surface Modification in Leipzig, published its findings online in the journal Advanced Materials. The…

  • University, Company Boost LC Projector Energy Efficiency

    Engineers at North Carolina State University and ImagineOptix Corporation, both in Raleigh, have created a technology to convert unpolarized light into polarized light, making liquid crystal (LC) projectors — the kind often used in classrooms and conferences — almost twice as energy efficient. Their research appeared last week in the journal Applied Optics (paid subscription…

  • Grant to Fund New Drought-Resistant Biofuel Grasses

    The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis has received a $12.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a more drought-resistant type of grass that can be processed into biofuels. The five-year award will be shared by collaborators at Carnegie Institution for Science, University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, University of…

  • Israeli Consortium to Study Mediterranean Resources

    A consortium of universities and research institutes, headed by University of Haifa, will establish the Israel Center for Mediterranean Sea Research. A committee of Israel’s Council for Higher Education adopted the recommendation of Israel Academy of Sciences to establish the center, whose work will include research of Israel’s off-shore economic potential. In addition to University…

  • Renewable Chemicals Developer Raises $104M in Venture Funds

    Elevance Renewable Sciences in Woodbridge, Illinois says it raised $104 million in its series E financing, the fifth round of funding after start-up. Lacustrine Limited, a subsidiary of Genting Berhad, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia led the round with Total Energy Ventures International, based in Paris. Elevance produces specialty chemicals for personal care products, detergents,…