Winston Ho Group wins Accelerator Award

The Ho Group, led by Professor W.S. Winston Ho, has won $71,364 in funding from the Accelerator Awards program in the Office of Technology Commercialization.

The funding will help advance the group's spiral-wound membrane module for gas separation. The scope of the project includes a market assessment in the gas separation market, membrane module fabrication, and developing a manufacturing design integration plan for moving to full-scale production of membrane modules.

At the conclusion of this project, the group will have a robust membrane module design that meets the technical requirements of the primary market segment identified during the market assessment.

This design will then enable performance testing of the prototype modules to verify that technical requirements are met. Additionally, the work performed under this grant should provide the inventors with a design sufficient for use in other market segments, but additional testing will be required to verify this.

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Over the past three years, Ohio State has developed a full funding continuum with eight funds to support the development of concepts from early stage to end product or company.

One of the funds - the Accelerator Awards Program - is arguably the most important, because it invests in Ohio State technologies at the earliest stage. Providing support at the earliest stage reduces the risk for those interested in investing in or licensing technologies and makes a difference in advancing unlicensed inventions towards successful commercialization.

Over a 12-month timeline, up to $100,000 in funding is provided to further develop and validate promising technologies. Once the assessment of the market and membrane module manufacturing is completed favorably, the Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) actively works to transfer the technology to the private sector for marketplace entry.